Team on The Edge of The Playoffs

Back at the site of the original midget tossing, The Ship headed into Week 13 fighting for a playoff spot. With only 4 points separating 3rd through 6th place, The Ship has a strong chance of making the playoffs, with even an outside shot at a 3rd place finish. However, with a BYE week in the last week of the season, The Ship does not control its own destiny, so it needed a strong showing in its last match.

Despite the huge group of fans that were to show up during the evening and a full roster on hand, Rich started the night out early by rolling to an easy win in front of a crowd of none. Fred and Meredith lost close matches, and despite a Ton-25, Dave nearly lost to a chucker before pulling out a win. Nikki continued her dominance with her third S501 win in a row and fifth in six games this season. Not used to playing in a new age bracket, The Birthday Girl lost the last match, and we were tied 3-3 after S501.

The steamroller that is Rich / Fred piled up 2 wins to open up the Cricket round. Mindy / Eric ran into a buzz saw in their first game, but came back to play a strong second game before losing by 1 bull. Jen / Nikki played two strong games, including 3 R5s between them, in earning a split. With another 3-3 tie, the match was even at 6-all after two rounds.

Dave / Mindy started things off in D501 with a win, completing Dave's undefeated D501 record (even though Mindy carried Dave by doubling in and out). Jen / Meredith played a great game and looked to have their match locked up before losing a double-1 contest. As always, the match came down to the final game, and The Birthday Girl stepped up to the line. The Edge doubled-in first and jumped to a 200 point lead. But Rich / Holly battled back and got down to double-out first. The Edge got stuck on 5, and refused to get an even number, leaving the door wide open for Rich / Holly. As the clock struck 12:30A, Holly blew out the candles on a long evening, nailing a double-1 and giving The Ship a 10-8 victory.

Playoff-wise, here's the deal. We are currently 3 points ahead of DAMMIT, who will get 0 points for their BYE next week, so they will finish in 6th place. With 9 BYE points next week, we will end the season with 100 points. The Imports have 82 points, and they played Road Rage this week and the Huckleberries next week. So, against the top 2 teams in the league, the Imports need to average 9 points each week in order to tie us for 4th place. If not, we make the playoffs. (FYI, in their 2 matches earlier this season, the Imports scored a total of 13 points against these teams.) If they get exactly 18 points, we head to a tie-breaker. However, in our 2 head-to-head matches this season, we won 11-7 and lost 7-11, meaning the tiebreaker is tied, and therefore we would need to play a "special match" sometime after January 7 to battle for the last playoff spot. If that match ends in a tie, then a game of 1001 is played (SI/DO) using 6 players per side (no, I'm not making this up) to determine the winner.

Props:
Holly - For giving all of us a present on her birthday.
Rich - Sweep.
Dave - An on-time arrival, yielding 2 Wins, 235 AS points, and a fight with the scorekeeper.
Nikki - There are no I's in Nikki.
Whitney, Mark, Jeff, Sam, Christine and everyone else who made the trip downtown - Thanks for comin'.

A War of Attrition

Coming into the night, The Ship had a thin 2-point hold on third place in C-2. However, the Imports were assured of 9 points this week, due to their BYE. So, The Ship needed at least 7 points in order to ensure a hold on third place.

Rich lost fairly quickly out of the gate, in a game which would prove to be the exception the rest of the night. Meredith fell behind in her game, but was able to come back, before losing a long match that came down to dueling 3s. The next game proved to be an even longer battle, as Fred and Ralph threw at double-1 about fifty times each before Fred lost. Mindy lost another long double-out battle, but this was sandwiched by steamroller wins from Nikki "The Stopper" Kent, including her first All-Star points of the season, and Jen. So in a round that should have ended with The Ship up 5-1, we ended S501 down 2-4.

In the first game of Cricket, Nikki / Jen played solidly, but they were matched up against a bull master and they lost both games. Mindy / Meredith had chances to win both of their games, but also lost in straight sets. In the last round, Rich / Fred, who have not played together for over a year, swept their two games convincingly. With 2 wins, the score was 4-8, and The Ship needed two wins in D501 to maintain a hold on third place in the league.

Fred / Mindy started out D501 strong, and looked to be rolling to a win, but we lost yet another battle for double-out. In game two, Dave doubled-in and doubled-out, carrying Rich along for the ride and the win. In the last game, Jen / Meredith jumped out to a lead, and Jen hit a bunch of triple-19s, but like the rest of the night, we lost the battle to double out. We ended the night with 6 points, dropping us out of third place by one point.

Props:
Nikki - Finally off the All-Star schneid.

Hugh DeMann

As "Nature Boy" Ric Flair used to say, "To be the man, you gotta beat the man". That means that after last night, we the man. Not only did we beat the top team in the league, but we did it in their house, in what was easily the most exciting and entertaining match of the season.

The Ship started out as strong as Tony Atlas, when Fred, Dave and Meredith reeled off 3 straight wins in the first three games of S501. Our streak was snapped when Rich was delivered a pile driver by "Triple" Tim in the fourth game. The match was really close just before it started. Then Tim got rolling with three 95s in a row before throwing a triple-20, double-7 to get out from 74. As the match ended, Rich was heard to say "Umm, game on?". When Nikki beat Drum in the last game, we finished S501 with a 4-2 lead.

Like the evil Iron Sheik, Road Rage was not going down without a fight, and they began to assert their presence with authority in Cricket. In the first game of their match, Fred / Holly were soundly crushed. But F / H came back in game 2 and built up a commanding lead. However, unable to finish out the bulls, F / H were ultimately swept. Round 2 with Meredith / Nikki didn't fare much better, and by the time Rich / Dave got to their game, The Ship was on the brink of a complete bitch slapping in Cricket. Facing "Triple" Tim proved to be an insurmountable obstacle for R / D, as he hit triple 19, 17, 16 and 15 and easily took game 1. In game 2, R / D built up a lead, piling on points to try and stave off the relentless onslaught of triples. But they were never able to completely close the door, and when the game came down to bulls, R / D were nudged out at the end. With 6 straight losses, the Ship was down 4-8 heading into D501, and looked to be trapped in a deadly figure-four leglock.

By the time D501 started, the night had the feeling of a steel-cage match. In round 1, Fred / Nikki jumped all over "Triple" Tim (who apparently can't double) and rolled to a win. In the second game, Dave / Holly looked to be on the verge of tossing the midget. With a healthy 400+ point lead, they were cruising to an easy win, but they hit a snag. As Road Rage slowly crawled back into the game, Dave / Holly tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to double out. Even a reward from Meredith of naked lesbian action didn't seem to have any effect (although it did make Carl pretty shaky). When Holly finally hit the double-1 to end it, the match was amazingly tied, and it all came down to one last game. The last match of the night was a straight-up brawl, with both teams getting in right away. Meredith nailed two 88s to move things along, and then brought the Ship to the verge of victory. With the game on the line, Meredith stepped up to the line and threw a high, arcing dart that was reminiscent of "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka leaping from the top turnbuckle. Just like Superfly would come crashing down to smother his opponents, Meredith's dart smacked into the double-3 to deliver the final, crushing, knockout blow to Road Rage. The ref slammed his fist into the mat for the 3-count, and The Ship walked away with a sweep of D501 and 10-8 win for the night.

For the record, we have now beaten outright the #1 and #3 teams in the league, and next week we play the #2 team. Let's get ready to rumble.

Props:
Meredith - For great darts and permanently distracting Carl.
Nikki - For continuing to prove that All-Star points are meaningless.
Dave - Undefeated in D501. I'm giving you a raise.