Just Darts Since 2009
Second week in a row that we played really well as a team. Even if everybody’s stats didn’t rise, as I said more than once on Tuesday, it’s not so much how well you shoot as it is when you shoot well. (That must have gotten old fast, now that I think about it.)
When the pressure was on, time after time, someone stepped up and had a great round, regardless of how well he had been playing until that time.
I got some good news from the other team: there are now only three dartboards at Tracks. In past seasons, there have been so many lined up so close to each other that there was no room for anyone to stand. This makes traveling to Tracks to play the final game of the season a much more pleasant prospect.
The final score doesn’t reflect the quality of Good Strokes’ play. They were in the same frustrating situation we often find ourselves–just a hair shy a few times too often. Could easily have gone the other way.
Nevertheless, final score: a 9-4 win.
At the top of the screen, you’ll notice a new button labelled “Tiernan’s Women.” This is a brand new dart team composed of some ladies we like very much. Here you’ll see stats for Red’s fiancee, Rook’s girlfriend, my erstwhile chauffeuse… and the rest!
(See Franny and Scotty, you’re like the Professor and Mary Ann, and those are everybody’s favorite characters!)
Almost halfway through the season, so it’s time to recap.
Week 1 – Bradford’s I
We got away with one here. You could tell that these guys were good dart players, but they hadn’t gotten their rhythm yet. You can see from the standings that they bounced back nicely. Glad we caught them the first week.
Final score: a 9-4 win.
Week 2 – Brennan’s II
We couldn’t do anything against them. Judging from their reactions (and the conversation I couldn’t help hearing on account of I was listening to every word) this was the best they’d played in a while. It was unbelievable. We were down 9-0 at one point, until Rook broke through with a win and it was time to celebrate.
Final score: a 10-3 loss.
Week 3 – Casey’s I
People who’ve read this blog for a while probably remember Moose from when he was on our side. (We like Moose.) He plays for Casey’s I now, and it looks like he’s a good fit there. Nice bunch of guys, and a lot of fun to play against. We went up 6-2 against them, and took the foot off the gas a little. But it was a good time.
Final score: a 7-6 win.
Week 4 – The Office Cafe I
Roller coaster. Down 3-0, then 5-2 before we started to click. But when we did, we really caught fire. For a few games, we played as well as we ever have as a team. Down 6-5 in the last game of cricket, Red hit a double bull with his final dart for the win–a game the other team would have surely won the next round. In 701, I shot over 40 ppd for the game–far and away the best I’ve ever done. It didn’t change the standings much, but it was a confidence booster.
Final score: a 7-6 win.
So there it is. A lot of darts, a lot of fun, and we’re at .500 so far. Nothing wrong with that.
(I don’t know why the left axis on the cricket graph above is not displaying the scores correctly. I’ll try to fix it.)
Well, another dart season’s gone…
Remember on 12/26 when I said we had a match the next day? I don’t know how I could have misread the schedule–I probably didn’t even look at it–but of course, we had a bye the week between Christmas and New Year’s.
So, Red and I showed up for the match and played for a few hours since we were there anyway. If you check the stats above, you’ll notice that he played quite a bit better the last two weeks. Just sayin’.
Oh, and the league office wasn’t being lazy by not sending out the stats reports. I always forget that he doesn’t issue them the last couple of weeks of the season to prevent teams tanking to one another to manipulate the standings and get into the playoffs in a less than honest fashion. Kinda lousy to even imagine some people doing that, but they do. The stats have been updated now that the playoff teams are set.
So, not a bad couple of weeks. We lost to The Cards 7-6, but only after going down 5-0 to them to start the match. It came down to the final game in the end, and while it would have been sweet to walk away with the win, I couldn’t be too upset about how we finished the match.
Then it was Brickhouse I last Tuesday, and we played better than we have in a long, long time. What impressed me most was how well the other team handled what happened. They were pretty sure that we were knocking them out of the playoffs and they reacted with genuine good humor. As it turned out, of course, we only knocked them back from 3rd to 4th place, and so they’re still in.
We didn’t make the playoffs, but we didn’t miss by much. And we didn’t hit .500, but we missed that by only a hair. We could have all done better this season, but it’s a tough division and we didn’t embarrass ourselves.
All in all, a good time.
Final record: 90-92
I’ll let you know if anything interesting happens at the banquet. Otherwise, I’ll see you when the next season starts.
I really started getting confused with the stats reports, because we played during the bye week, then skipped a week when everybody else was playing, and then played two matches in one week. I couldn’t keep straight which week on the stats reports corresponded to our week, and so I sort of threw my hands up.
I think I’ve got a handle on it, but we haven’t gotten our results from last week yet and since we’re playing tomorrow I figured I’d just post what I have.
Quick recaps:
Office Cafe – Typical loss for us. We went down 4-0, then battled back to tie it 5-5, then lost the last three games for an 8-5 loss. Frustrating.
Muggs Away – Our sister team, and it’s always fun playing against them. It’s even better beating them (8-5) especially since they’re in first place, but that’s a little less impressive when you find out that one of their key players was missing.
Dart Fellas – Fun group of guys. This match was almost the reverse of the one against the Office Cafe team. We went up 4-0, they battled back, and then we put them away 9-4. I wonder if the Office team was as nervous when we did it to them as we were last week?
Two matches left–against The Cards and Brickhouse. We were nine games out of the playoffs before last week, and unless that number went down quite a bit it doesn’t look like we’ll make the playoffs this time.
Sometimes playing darts is more fun when there’s nothing at stake.
Sorry about the delay: between Thanksgiving and house-sitting I haven’t been home in a while, and now I need to eat before tonight’s match against The Office Cafe.
So, long story short, we did what we’ve done all year: terrible start, mini-comeback, fall short.
Final score: an 8-5 loss.
Whoops!
I was waiting for the stats to be sent to us before posting, and since this wouldn’t have been the first time they’d been this late I didn’t think too much about it. But the league didn’t officially have any matches this week (Casey’s couldn’t make our December match, so we rescheduled to the off week) so the stats won’t be coming.
The schedule above has been updated, but not the standings or stats, which will get two week’s worth of changes next week.
So, what happened?
Easy enough to describe: we played horribly in the first set of 501, and went down 4-0 before we had time to catch our breaths. And while we did a good job of coming back and tying it up 5-5, it was just too much of a headstart to give a team as strong as Casey’s.
Special thanks to the Rook for winning the 701 game–our first one in a while!–to end the match on a high note.
Final score: a 7-6 loss.
Next up, 40 and Over for John. What’ll happen? Hell if I know! Well, I know one thing. I’ll be getting there a little earlier than usual. Rook’s girlfriend pointed out that we’ve been starting out dismally our last few matches. Maybe if I start “practicing” earlier we won’t start in such a hole.
Falling Awake 