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Western GC Regionals

28 Feb – 3 Mar 2022

First Flight Singles

The USCA Western GC Regionals completed Thursday afternoon.

We began Thursday with 7 players competing out of the original 28 entries.

All four players in the First Flight began the day by finishing the last round of the draw and process ladder at 8 AM.  The winners Vicki Till and Giancarlo Ruiz then met in the First Flight Final playoff in a best of 19 pt game.


Neil Burton (Pres), Giancarlo Ruiz (1st), Paul Bennett (TD), Vicki Till (2nd)

First Flight Singles finish:
1. Giancarlo Ruiz
2. Vicki Till
3. Ken Slaughter
    Spencer Hood
5. Gail Kern
   Bill Sullivan
  Betty Teoman
8. Gerry West
  Tracey Roche
10. Kory Teoman
   Pat Dugan
   Linda Merk
13. Gary Steiner
   James Doyle

First Flight Doubles

And in First Flight with 6 teams, John Shanholt and Gail Kern won the Draw ladder while Rick Zazueta and Giancarlo Ruiz won the Process ladder.

The final playoff between the process and draw could have been played right before lunch after the completion of the FF singles playoff (with Giancarlo the victor), instead Gail and John preferred to take notes on the play in the Championship Singles matches, enjoy lunch and head back early to Phoenix.

First Flight Doubles finish:
1. Giancarlo Ruiz/Rick Zazueta
2. John Shanholt/Gail Kern
3. Cami Russack/Linda Merk
4. Pat Dugan/Gary Steiner
5. Spencer Hood/Gary West
    Betty Teoman/James Doyle

Championship Singles

In Championship Singles, the process and draw were knotted up with Brian Lozano having to play both Paul Bennett in the draw and Mohammad Kamal in the process, followed by the Singles final match.

The format of all three matches was a best of three set of 13 point games.

In the draw match, Brian took the early lead with 7-3 victory. Paul fought back in the second game to level the match with a 7-4 win. In the last game, Paul took the match with a 7-3 win.

In the process match, Mohammad and Brian went thru the fish hook twice with Mohammad Kamal taking the match in two straight games 7-6, 7-6.

In the Singles Final match, Mohammad quickly dispatched Paul with strong takeaways, great hoop running and solid tactics, 7-1 and 7-4.

I thank both Brian Lozano and Mohammad for raising the level of play throughout the tournament as well as assisting me both in directing the tournament and in refereeing the event.

Mohammad (tournament referee) would also like to thank certified referees Tate Russack, Stephen Jackson, and John Shanholt for their service and willingness to help referee the event. And to all other players, please consider learning the rules and stepping up to become a certified referee.


Paul Bennett (2nd), Neil Burton ( Pres.), Mohammad Kamal (1st)

Championship Singles finish:
1. Mohammad Kamal
2. Paul Bennett
3. Brian Lozano
4. John Shanholt
   Jim Butts
6. James Creasey
   Tate Russack
  Neil Burton
9. Cameron Evans
   Cami Russack
    Rick Zazueta
    Stephen Jackson

Championship Doubles

I know that no one collects or loses DGRADE points by playing doubles, yet I often wonder why... perhaps the math is too difficult, perhaps if we had the answer we could figure out the graviton. And yet, doubles is one of the most fun and pleasing aspects of croquet. Where better to occupy your afternoon or morning?

In the US Regionals, players were given the opportunity to play both singles and doubles as well as pick your own partner.  At first, few entrants picked their doubles teams, but when it was time to make the draw, about half did. The rest were assigned partners in a way to make the sum of the DGRADES about equal.

We started Monday morning with Doubles, mixed in some singles in the afternoon and Tuesday morning, then finished up most of the Double play on Tuesday afternoon.  Picking up the last bit of the Doubles on Thursday, and fitting them into the schedule when players were available was easy.

In Championship Doubles, Brian Lozano and Stephen Jackson won both the draw and process, thus winning the Championship Doubles. However, 2nd place was not yet determined since Phyllis and Jim Butts were runner up in the draw, and Paul Bennett and Tracey Roche were runner up in the process.

After Paul's match with Brian, the playoff for Silver was done and Jim and Phyllis defeated Paul and Tracey 7-5.

Championship Doubles finishing order:
1. Brian Lozano/Stephen Jackson
2. Jim Butts/Phyllis Butts
3. Tracey Roche/Paul Bennett
4. Donna Dixon/Bill Sullivan
    Ned Sperry/Tate Russack
6. Neil Burton/Ken Slaughter
    James Creasey/Kory Teoman