Little Berlin Tournament scores and photos

It was a beautiful sunny day with a light fresh breeze. A very welcome break from the chilly winter days recently.

Vive arrived nice and early to set up the boards, bless his cotton socks, and had the court in great shape by the time everyone arrived.

After a few disappointing last minute cancellations it was apparent that we had a mere 4 teams to play. The general consensus was to run Round Robin and then Seeded Single Elimination. The rounds were drawn up and we began play

As promised, there was plenty of delicious dark ale created by Rob’s Home brew factory (TM)

And of course plenty of BBQ goodness including German style sausages, roo snags, vege dogs and vege patties

Our friends from Healsville also brought some fantastic bakery prizes

Human Powered Cycles donated some great prizes, thanks very much Bill!

On to the games!
Team 1: Polonators (Ian, Jem, Dave)
Team 2: Top Centre (Damon, Ray, Leigh)
Team 3: Polocalypse Now (Vive, Tali, RobM)
Team 4: Lazy 88s Sleep Squad (Benee, Sam, Aaron, Kez)

(Lazy 88s photo missing)

Points system
Win = 2 points, Draw = 1 point, Loss = 0 points

Round Robin

First round

First up was Top Centre vs Polonators. Polonators (Jem) scored a very impressive goal during the game but Top Centre were the victors, soundly defeating Polonators 5 to 1
Next was Polocalypse Now vs Lazy 88s formed with Kez, Benee and Sam. It was a hard fought battle with neither team giving an inch, every turn was countered, some spectacular crashes involving Sam, Kez and myself, shots were skilfully blocked until the full 15 minutes were up and both teams were at a draw: 3 to 3.

Second Round

Top Centre vs Lazy 88s: Lazy 88s put in a good fight but ultimately Top Centre sailed to victory, beating Lazy 88s 5 to 0
Polocalypse Now vs Polonators: A fast paced game, with a few close goals from Ian but finished 5 to 0 with Polocalypse Now the victors

Third round

Polonators vs Lazy 88s: Polonators pulled out all stops and scored goal after goal, with Lazy 88s answering with their own goals. The game was 4 all and the crowd was going crazy, everyone was cheering for Lazy 88s and yelling encouragement for Polonators until finally a small fumble from Polonators gave posession to Lazy 88s who quickly belted in the winning goal.

Single Elimination

Semi Finals

Lazy 88s vs Polocalypse Now: This was going to be the decider. With both teams playing to win and pulling out all of the killer moves, Lazy 88s smashed in two goals but Polocalypse Now saw and raised their two with five, winning the match and progressing to the Finals

Top Centre vs Polonators: Top Centre belted goal after goal against Polonators and won the match in under 8 minutes

Finals

Polocalypse Now vs Top Centre: Top Centre clearly had the better players, and with Damon sitting atop Scott’s new prototype “Symes” bike, the situation was looking bad for us. With Top Centre snatching a few early goals we were looking for any errors on their side that might give us a lucky break and finally it came and Vive was right on top of it and belted in a decisive goal, then Top Centre replied with more goals, then the moment came. Having posession in Top Centre’s half, facing away from their goals with one opponent on and another coming, I led them away from their goals and took a chance at a behind the back, blind, goal and in to the back of the net it went! BAM! One more for Polocalypse Now, cheers and minor celebrations were quickly hushed and Top Centre quickly made sure of their victory by quickly knocking two more goals.

Winning teams and rankings

1st place: Top Centre (6 points from RR: 3 Wins, 0 Losses)
2nd place: Polocalypse Now (3 points from RR: 1 win, 1 draw, 1 loss)
3rd place: Lazy 88s Sleep Squad (3 points from RR: 1 win, 1 draw, 1 loss)
4th place: Polonators (0 points from RR: 0 wins, 0 draws, 3 losses)