Shoot the Rapids Feb 16-18 2007

Saturday's events kick off at the crack of noon with the Blind Draw Triples. Although my team played well and we had a bunch of fun the effort came up a bit short against a tough first round draw featuring June "Bug" Lehey. June was equally as deadly as she is adorable, kicking my butt in that match then moving on to sweep the Women's Doubles Cricket and Women's Singles 501 on Saturday.

Well so much for the draw events and we move on to Men's Doubles Cricket. Normally, I will cork and start the doubles events. But Steve must have been paying attention to my anemic warm up darts as that option wasn't offered. I quickly agreed this was the best plan after watching Steve peg in triple after triple. Behind a barrage of Hertzfeld triples we cruise into the finals rather unscathed.

Waiting to meet us in the finals is newly transplanted Chicago resident Ray "Razor" Carver and Brady "The Kid" McCaw. Steve and I put up a decent fight but go down swinging in a tough finals. I guess any time you have a "Kid" playing with a "Razor" someone is gonna get cut, this time it was us.

The next event is the singles 501. Its a tough field with many great players in attendance including the dreaded Dr. Evil himself, Steve Brown. My first round starts off tough with drawing Brady. For those that have never met him let me tell you hes one tough competitor. And like in his drag racing days he flew past me in the first leg. But somehow my darts decided to rebound and I was fortunate enough to pick up the pace to advance in a tight 2-1 scoreline.

A few rounds pass and my game is now resembling something closer to good though certainly not exceptional. After a dog fight with Hertzfeld I advance to the quarter-finals where that bearded merchant of pain, Steve Brown awaits.

After missing two darts at tops to relinquish control of the first leg I rebound to take a nice mid-game lead in the second stanza. With 302 remaining Mr. Brown fires up a T20, Dbull, Dbull combination to land on 142. Why would you ever shoot that shot? Well Steve is a dart math genius and if he only hit a single bull leaves 167 no other combination would do that without a triple. Maybe I'll just call him what he is from now on, a dart genius.

To make a long story short I miss 112, Steve takes the game out and get a new story to tell. The only good news is he has teamed up with my mom for the mixed pairs event later that evening.