The preliminary round of the 14th Sandbag Tournament concluded last night, and there were some significant moves made by several teams. Before discussing the final field, though, I would first like to extend my sincerest thanks to the teams that will not be moving on: Big Guys, Wallaby's, Okie Tonk, Corner Pocket, Hanko's, Blue Horn, Zack's, and K.C.'s. I genuinely appreciate the competition you brought to the tournament and the role you played in making the first post-COVID Sandbag Tournament as successful as it has been. I hope to see you in the field for the McCarthy Cup in the spring.
As for the teams moving on, big congratulations must go to Danny K's for securing the top seed in a dominating fashion. While its total score margin of nearly 4,000 points was convincing, the only number that matters is the one after dropping low scores, and that margin was nearly 8,500! Sincerest congrats to them for being so consistently good throughout the preliminary round. As always, the standings can be found on the tournament page at Don Denton's stats site:
https://ntn.donrdenton.com/contest.php? ... contest=56There were some interesting happenings in the final week. Most compelling is the story of how Phat Turtle overcame last week's technical difficulties to secure the 4th seed in the knockout round. Similarly, Alien Bar bounced back from a sub-par performance last week to land on the right side of the bubble for the 8th and final seed, and Time Out West did much the same in snagging the 6th seed. Furthermore, Red Fox demonstrated that being consistently good is no match for being great when it counts. Despite winning last night and never scoring below 51k throughout the prelims, Red Fox had to fight hard this week for the right just to eat Danny K's dust for the 2nd seed.
Of course, being great when it counts is even more important now that the tournament enters the single-elimination phase. And what a strong field we have for the knockout round! Congrats to Danny K's, Red Fox, Teaser's, Phat Turtle, Primetime, Time Out, Moose McGuire's, and Alien Bar for making the field. Pretty much all of these teams have made the quarterfinals of the two major trophy tournaments (McCarthy and Sandbag) multiple times. Teaser's, Danny K's, and the folks from Arizona, Ottawa, and Albuquerque have been frequent fixtures in the semifinals, and five of the eight (Danny K's, Red Fox, Teaser's, and the Albuquerque and Ottawa crews) have made it to the finals at least once. Any one of these teams is capable of knocking off any of the others in any given week, so there are sure to be some "upsets" on the way to the finals. I use the scare quotes for "upsets" as a way of acknowledging that we really should not be surprised if any of these teams wins: I really think any one of them could go all the way. Here are the brackets for the knockout round:
1. Danny K's v. 8. Alien Bar
2. Red Fox v. 7. Moose McGuire's
3. Teaser's v. 6. Time Out West
4. Phat Turtle BBQ v. 5. Primetime
Good skill to all this week!