2017-2018: Week 8 Player Reports

Game 1: Team Spadoni (Grey) vs. Team Garmes (Red)

-What’s wrong in Spadoni-ville? Playing with their full roster, Team Grey looked like a lifeless sack of manure in Week 8, allowing Kevin Harrigan to run all over them to the tune of 41 points. It just doesn’t make sense for such a deep, talented team to get bulldozed by one player. With group effort, they should be making life hard on one-dimensional teams like Team Red, which relies so heavily on Kevin’s production. You have to make someone else score. If they do, just tip your cap. But this is HatchetBall: half the guys in the league can barely get their crap into a toilet with accuracy. The scoring triumvirate of Rappold, O’Malley, and Spadoni looks more like the Three Stooges lately, while the effort guys (Murph and Hahn) look frustrated. After starting the season 3-0, Team Grey has dropped to .500. They have a soft schedule coming up and still will land around the 3^rd or 4^th seed, but if they can’t compete against the top teams, this season will feel like a major failure for all involved.

Game 2: Team Konrath (Dark Blue) vs. Team Vito (Blue)

-A huge wasted opportunity for Team Konrath, which has sputtered out of the gates. They took advantage of the below-the-surface shittiness of Team Blue and had a large lead in this one. However, as always seems to happen in HatchetBall, one team ran out of gas while the other team started to hit a few shots, bringing the contest closer than it should have been. After two overtimes, Team Dark Blue had nothing left and Team Vito did just enough to secure the win. Steigerwald scored a season-high 36, but it still wasn’t enough. Sounds like a familiar story from years past. Still, while Week 8 didn’t change the standings, it did expose the fact that the “bad” teams can still play well and the “good” teams probably aren’t as good as they think.

Game 3: - Team Brennan (Green) vs. Team Matt V (Yellow)

-This one stings for a variety of reasons that are painful to talk about. First, in light of Team Dark Blue throwing away an upset win just moments before this game started, Team Green had a great opportunity to move officially out of the bottom tier of the league. Second, playing without their 2^nd Round pick, Team Green had a great chance to beat the reigning champions and stick it to their cocksucker captain. Third, up by three points with the all-time leader in free-throw percentage at the stripe, this game was over. Instead, Team Green stays stuck in the cellar with a 1-4 record. In the grand scheme, this game might not matter much. The two contests against Team Dark Blue (which are both yet to be played) will likely determine which of these teams stays home for the playoffs. However, in the event those games split, Green will definitely want this win back. But…have hope. Team Green has looked different over the last three contests. They probably should have won against Team Blue in Week 5 and Team Yellow in Week 8, which are the two top teams in the league, record-wise. The fact that they let both of those games slip away speaks to their inconsistency, but also to the fact that they have enough talent to compete. The 1-4 record, while a reality, was completely avoidable. As for Team Yellow, it’s notable that almost all of their points down the stretch came from their later round picks. It’s pathetic how captains continue to focus on the first couple rounds before making seemingly random selections to fill out their roster. The top players can sometimes negate each other in these contests, with the victory being decided by a role player exploiting a weak bench player.

Standings

Team	Captain	Win	Loss	Record	Win %	Streak
Yellow	Matt V	5	0	5 - 0	1.000	W5
Blue	Vito	5	1	5 - 1	0.833	W4
Light Blue	Tierney	3	2	3 - 2	0.600	W1
Red	Garmes	3	2	3 - 2	0.600	W1
Grey	Spadoni	3	3	3 - 3	0.500	L3
Dark Blue	Konrath	1	4	1 - 4	0.200	L2
Green	Brennan	1	4	1 - 4	0.200	L1
Orange	Bo	0	5	0 - 5	0.000	L5