July 17, 2009

WHEELING, WV — The finals for each of the three days of the third annual St. Michael’s Parish Community Festival Cornhole Tournament were dominated by veteran Loozers. The unique format, which took place this year from July ninth through the eleventh on the school grounds in Wheeling, WV, offers a three-day doubles tournament with a different champion crowned on each day.

JT Thomas and GStan Kaniecki, who is also the tournament co-director, partnered up for the Friday kickoff bracket and predictably had little trouble with the other ten teams in the field. “I don’t think any of the teams scored even five points on us all night” exclaimed a less than enthused Thomas. “I know the Friday field of the tournament is usually a little weak, and our humiliation of the competition was expected; so there is not much to get excited about. But this was the only day I was able to play.” GStan was also fairly reserved about the victory but added that “a win is a win, and it still felt good to get it with my boy JT after coming off of disappointing doubles performances in the 2007 World Championships and the 2008 ACA Regional Qualifier.”

Saturday is the feature event of the SMPCF Cornhole Tournament, the one where the toughest competition shows up and the one that everyone wants to win. The bright lights of the SMPCF were all shining on Loozer Mark “Sleepy” Kaniecki, who teamed up with his father Stan. “Sleepy might have had the best individual throwing performance we’ve ever had out here” said Director GStan. Sleepy was only six days removed from a day-after-a-family-wedding-cookout cornhole event, where he owned the boards for four straight hours. He rode that high all the way through Saturday’s main event, but he admitted afterward that he had put a lot of pressure on himself to win. “It was a Saturday night. My twin three-year-old girls were with my mother-in-law. My wife was working. And I was free to drink beer and smoke cigarettes all night. I knew that if I couldn’t win at cornhole under those conditions, a championship might never be in the cards for me.” Sleepy and Stan outlasted fifteen other quality Ohio Valley cornhole teams to take home the first place trophies.

Sunday at the SMPCF Cornhole Tournament can be a letdown, but this year’s double-elimination event offered plenty of drama and emotion. Uncle Mark Young teamed up with his son AJ for the second straight year. At the 2008 SMPCF, the father-son duo fell just short of the big prize for both the Friday and Saturday events, losing hotly contested final matches each night to champions Marcus George and Rob Crawl. This year, after losing their first match early, Mark and AJ battled their way through the loser’s bracket all the way to the finals where they met none other than their 2008 Achilles heel, Marcus and Rob, yet again for the championship. The pair looked primed to avenge their previous losses as they took the first game in the best of three format; however, it was not meant to be, and they dropped the following two games, taking home their third set of runner-up trophies in two years. Uncle Mark said he was not that disappointed in the outcome. “The runner-up trophies are the same size as the first place trophies. And I called Ohio Valley Awards. They said they would replace this little brass plate with one that says ‘first place’ for like two bucks. For that price, I might do it for all three of my trophies, and maybe AJ’s too. Who’s gonna know? ” When asked if he was aware that he was being quoted by a reporter who was publishing an article that would be on the World Wide Web, he smugly asked “what in the hell do spiders have to do with my cornhole trophies?”

Ignorance of modern technology aside, all in all it was a stellar weekend for Loozer Baggers. The 2009 Golfapalooza Cornhole Tournament should be another doozy.