Last night’s first round playoff match ended with the Take it Easy lads getting a pretty good spanking. But we didn’t take it laying down, and we are not hanging our heads.

Contrary to my initial belief, we did not play Cake Mix, we played Eberhardt. Eberhardt was ranked 3rd, Cake Mix 4th, and us 5th. 1st and 2nd place teams had byes this week. So, normally the highest ranked would play the lowest ranked, but for some reason (the league President gave an explanation, but I’m not sure I understand it), 3rd played 5th and 4th played 6th. My only gripe is that our “reward” for finishing higher in the standings was to play a higher ranked team. That seems backwards.

But games are won (or lost) at the oche, so on with the match report. Eberhardt is always a powerhouse. This year they had the number 2 and number 3 ranked players in the league (Dennis and Greg). I surmised that they would play in the first two spots in the lineup. I decided our best shot was to put our two best players up against them and hope to come out at least 3-3, then let our 3 and 4 players take their chances in more evenly matched games. So, when lineups were exchanged I was surprised to see Greg in the #3 slot and Dennis in #4. Ah well, the best laid plans and all that.

So I had Sean in the opening match and pretty much had my way with him. To be honest, the way I was throwing I would have liked my chances with either Greg or Dennis. I owned the cricket numbers and threw a 90-out in ’01 (20, 20, double bull). The Eberhardt guys were calling me Barry Bonds (alluding to steroids). But all I had in me was a burrito, beer, and nicotine. So, we start out 3-0.

Matt is up next against John. Matt is our new player picked up to replace Cuatro. He’s been throwing decent all season and I was pretty confident he would take at least two legs from John. Well, they played 3 outstanding legs. Matt took the opening cricket leg, but had to do it by pointing out on bulls for a come from behind win. The ’01 match also went down to the wire, and Matt had a couple of shots at the out, but John got their first. Matt won the diddle and called ’01, and a very similar game took place with the same outcome. So, after two matches, we are sitting on a 4-2 lead.

Greg and Jim were up next. Jim has really been coming on strong in the second half of the season, but Greg was just too much for him last night, and he took a 3-0 sweep. Now we are down 5-4.

It’s a race to ten legs won in the playoffs, so Rick was under the gun in his match with Dennis. Rick had to work, so the match was delayed for about 15 minutes while we awaited his arrival. It’s tough to start throwing cold, but throwing cold against a quality player like Dennis is usually fatal. Dennis dominated the cricket leg, but Rick played well in the ’01 leg, taking a couple of out shots before Dennis caught up and took the win. Same thing in the third leg, so now we are barely clinging to life, down 8-4.

It was Lonnie and Matt in the ’01 doubles, and we had to have 2 legs to avoid elimination. They were throwing against Dennis and Charlie so they had their work cut out for them. After a real dogfight, Lonnie outed to take the first leg. Charlie had a monster game in the second leg to even it up. So, it was do or die time. And after a mighty struggle we died, losing 10-5.

Although the match was over, Greg offered to go ahead and play it out. That gave Rick and me the chance to see what we could do in cricket doubles against Greg and John. Nothing on the line but pride, but hey, I’ve played for less. And we had some titanic battles, back and forth, pointing, and contesting every number. With some clutch come from behind darts from Rick (i.e. double bull for points, 15 to close and triple 18 to close) we got a 3-0 sweep. So, one more leg up top and we would have been sitting 9-9 going into the team game. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, and all that.

Well, we wound up getting spanked in the team game anyway, so kudos to Eberhardt who played an excellent match. Good sports (now that a certain fella from England no longer plays on the team) and a good time, all in all.

Yeah, winning is great. But one thing about Take it Easy, when we lose, we do it with class. I wouldn’t want it any other way.