VITAL STATISTICS
Date: Sunday, July 25, 2004
Location: Wilcox Park, Lynnwood, WA
Winners: Jeff Gepner & Kevin Sutton
Participating Clubs: Lakewood Croquet Club and University of Washington Honors Croquet League
Lynnwood’s Wilcox Park once again played host to the Gary Coleman Memorial Team Challenge, as the annual Lakewood Croquet Club’s Doubles Championship capped off a whirlwind month for the circuit. Just four weeks prior, no summer events had been scheduled, President Brian S. Johnston III had stepped down and the season appeared to be in shambles. In stepped newly appointed Club President Kevin Sutton, a three-time Champions Cup winner and a competitor widely respected throughout the extreme croquet world. Sutton quickly righted the ship, instilling a new sense of urgency in the Club as it launched into the first of the three annual majors, the Coleman Challenge.
For the second consecutive year, the Challenge featured members of both the LCC and the University of Washington’s Honors Croquet League competing for the championship. Defending Coleman Challenge winner Jeff Gepner, left without a partner with Johnston missing in action (he did not participate in this year’s event), elected to team with Sutton. The two legends, with a combined six Champions Cups between them, proved to be a formidable pairing. Other LCC competitors included Nikki Gepner, returning to action to team with rookie Jenn Farrell, and Tom Carmony, who formed the only cross-club pairing with UW’s Nick Addington. UW teams Michelle Burce and Brandon Martin-Anderson, Rachel Rodman and Sierra Michels-Slettuet, and Dawn Chesbro and Jeremy Fuller rounded out the field.
The action was give and take throughout the two-hour match, with the teams of Gepner and Sutton, Carmony and Addington, and Martin-Anderson and Bruce (whose last names, together, sound like a law firm) trading the lead through the first leg of the course. Martin-Anderson and Bruce, first-time Coleman Challenge participants, set much of the pace in the early going and forced the remaining field to play catch-up.
As is usually the case with Wilcox Park courses, the field bunched up around an exceedingly difficult pair of wickets, placed around a tree on a sloping hillside. The arrival of LCC star “The Great One” Andy Cooper, along with his daughter Mia, further complicated matters, as 16-month-old Mia quickly became a pawn in the twisted gameplans of competitors, each urging her to pick up and toss opponents’ balls and reposition their own (babies and toddlers are treated the same as dog’s in the LCC Rulebook; if they move a ball, the ball must be played as it lies).
The see-saw battle continued during the next thirty minutes, as teams began to clear the difficult mid-course wickets and move towards the finish. A great shot by Nick Addington put he and Carmony in the lead heading into the finish. Gepner and Sutton quickly caught them to battle it out at the treacherous finish (the final wickets included one made up of the legs of a heavy picnic table; competitors were forced to crawl around and under the table in order to execute shots. The team of Nikki Gepner and Jenn Farrell also joined the fray, going kamikaze and inserting themselves into the finish.
The photo finish played out in much the same manner as last year’s event. Tom Carmony had a chance to end the match with a clutch shot, but failed to clear the table/wicket. This left just enough of an opening for Kevin Sutton to calmly clear the wicket and execute a crisp “Reverse Pull” shot to seal the victory for he and Gepner.
OTHER NOTABLES
The win marked the first Coleman Challenge victory for Sutton, who has not competed in the event since 2001… Gepner’s win gave him three Coleman Challenge wins (2001 with Carmony, 2003 with Johnston, and 2004 with Sutton), the most actual VICTORIES in the event by an LCC player. Carmony and Johnston hold the record for most overall Coleman Challenge wins with four apiece (though three of those four wins were the result of then-President Johnston naming he and Carmony champions)… Michelle Burce wowed the crowd with her innovative “Reverse Between the Legs” shot (which definitely needs a catchier name), a powerful shot that he’s perfected during UW Honors play… Carmony also showcased a variant on the Shuffleboard shot, in which the mallet head is positioned perpendicular to the ground when striking the ball.
2004 GARY COLEMAN MEMORIAL TEAM CHALLENGE
1 - Jeff Gepner & Kevin Sutton
2 - Tom Carmony & Nick Addington
3 - Brandon Martin-Anderson & Michelle Burce
4 - Rachel Rodman & Sierra Michels-Slettvet
5 - Dawn Chesbro & Jeremy Fuller
6 - Jenn Farrell & Nikki Gepner
