On Sunday March 6th the Libertyville Sports Complex hosted their first non-sanctioned Pickleball tournament which was organized by USAPA Ambassador Rick Tandecki. There were twelve NIP players that participated from the Rockford area. The tournament drew 57 participants from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Steve Stone, a USAPA Ambassador from Des Moines, IA drove six hours to reach this tournament, which is a testament to the need for more regional tournaments of this kind.
The Libertyville Sports Complex has a great Pickleball court set up and it is the best indoor tournament venue that I have experienced. The six Pickleball courts are on two enclosed floor hockey rinks and three sides of the rinks are glass with ample viewing of matches. Three courts were nicely spaced out on each rink and the nets were USAPA portable style.
The outdoor Dura Ball was used on for the tournament which doesn't bounce as high as an indoor ball, and it skidded a little on their athletic flooring. Even players that have experience with the Duraball needed an adjustment period for the ball's behavior at this venue.
Only five of the twelve NIP Rockford participants had competed in previous Pickleball tournaments, and only two NIP Rockford men had competed and an idea of what to expect in a tournament. The Men's Doubles competition was steep as sixteen teams competed. The 18+ and 55+ age brackets were combined. This may have given an extreme advantage to some of the younger athletic teams, some of which are Arena Football players in their mid-twenties. Although the ages were combined, experience and patience prevailed and Dan Sosna and John Nelson defeated some much younger players to capture to Men's Doubles gold.
Sarah and I competed in the Women's Doubles division. We had a first round bye (due to an odd number of teams) and our first match was one game to fifteen points against Tammy Dean and Laura Lawson. Tammy and Laura had already defeated their first opponents and were all fired up for their match against us. Sarah and I were coming cold off the benches which became evident very quickly! We found ourselves behind immediately. We took a timeout to re-group, switched sides at 8 points, and had a deficit of 11-0. We never gave up; we changed our strategy and rallied to win 15-13. Whew! That was a close one!
Although Tammy and Laura were bumped to the bottom bracket, they never surrendered. They fought their way though and met us in the finals to a game of 21 points. This game we were slightly more prepared for them, but as anyone who has played Pickleball knows, any game can be fickle. Eventually we ended up winning, but Tammy and Laura were awarded the Silver which is a great accomplishment for their first tournament, especially considering Laura has only been playing since December.
There were only three women that had entered into the Women's Singles Division. It might as well have been ten women in the division as I knew without a doubt that Sarah would be my toughest opponent. There’s nothing quite like practicing with someone only to meet them as your opponent on the court. I couldn’t manage to get my game together and switch gears from doubles strategy to singles. Sarah beat me flat out 15-7 in the first game. In the beginning of my second game my struggled continued, but I finally managed to get it together and beat my opponent, Joy. Of course, this meant that I needed to face Sarah again in a game to fifteen. The game was edgy and timeouts were taken on both sides of the net. There may have been some mutterings and throwing of a paddle in frustration. It’s always a duel to the death with us, and I refused to give up without a fight. But, Sarah prevailed in the end, 15-13. My hat goes off to my best friend who is the better singles player.
Some terrific networking and public relations connections were made and the NIP name is getting out slowly, but surely. I was interviewed by Bob Seidenberg who writes for “Lifetime" a publication for Blue Cross Blue Shield. I was also quoted by Conrad Kowal who is the Public Relations Manager for the Libertyville Sports Complex. I am hoping our website gets a little traffic from these encounters. We have picked up a few more fans on the NIP Facebook page since the tournament. And, someone did inquire as to our username on Twitter, so our social media horizon is growing.
Thanks to the Libertyville Sports complex for hosting, tournament director, Rick Tandecki for organizing, and the volunteers that supported him. Overall it was a day of fantastic players, great friends, and good times. I look forward to future tournaments and meeting new players.
Respectfully,
Jennifer Selchow
For a list of medal winners visit this blog:
For pictures of the medal winners visit this Northern Illinois Pickleball Facebook album:
For tournament pictures visit this Northern Illinois Pickleball Facebook album:
