2019-2020 Playoffs

	1. Orange
3. Gold		1. Orange
	6. Black
6. Black
			1. Orange
4. Red			Champion
	4. Red
5. Blue		2. Green
	2. Green

Round One, Game One: #3 Team Gold versus #6 Team Black

-This was a wild year for a million reasons and there’s been a varied response from the players in regards to the restart. Teams were not affected equally. Team White forfeit their playoff spot. Team Gold couldn’t get their actual team to show up, leading to an undermanned, predictable loss in the first round of the playoffs. Then there’s Team Black, which shouldn’t be in the playoffs and shouldn’t have Rob available to play, but here they are, heading into the semifinals with their whole team intact. Bob Kelly led a valiant effort for Team Gold with a game-high 40 points in his playoff debut, but it wasn’t near enough. Team Black was able to use their subs and outpace the short-staffed Team Gold. It's not easy taking 5 months off from basketball and playing all 40 minutes. It’s not worth wondering what might have been. We simply have to press forward with things as they currently stand. Team Black moves on, setting up a classic showdown between Rob and Mark. What’s old is new again.

Round One, Game Two: #4 Team Red versus #5 Team Blue

-With both teams missing key players, a standout individual performance becomes all the more important. Basketball is usually a team sport, but when strategy is scattered to the wind, all you really need is someone who can put the ball in the bucket. Big Chuck paced Team Red with a week-high 42 points. He basically beat Team Blue by himself. Team Blue struggled at the offensive end all season, and they weren’t going to outgun Team Red. Steve decided to sub himself out of the game one rebound shy of a triple double, which would have been just the second ever triple-double in playoff history. Luke has the only one. Go figure. Solid effort from Team Blue, but once they fell behind by double-digits, this one was basically over. Matt Koll misses the final four for the first time in his long HatchetBall career. Nothing gold can stay. Team Red will now be rewarded by playing the eviscerated Team Green in the semi-finals, likely allowing them to coast to the finals. Team Red was one of the worst, most inconsistent teams all season and here they are barreling towards title contention. God save us.

Round Two, Game One: #1 Team Orange versus #6 Team Black

-In a classic showdown between guys who have battled many, many times over the years, there was still an element of spontaneity to this one. Team Black’s preposterous road to get into this game, coupled with the uncertain roster attendance for Team Orange, made for some tense anticipation. And the game didn’t disappoint. Neither team was ahead by more than a few baskets at any point and the game could have swung either way down the stretch. In the end, Team Orange exposed a crucial mismatch that allowed Jerry to score 6 consecutive points and giving them the slight breathing room needed to secure the win. Rob shot well, with a game-high 31 points, and Matt V contributed an entire field goal. Team Orange was extremely balanced, with 3 players scoring 17+ points, proving yet again that basketball is a team sport and the most important winning aspect to any HatchetBall team is depth. We fully expect Rob to be back in prime form next season and Matt V is already hatching schemes to cheat his way back into the winner’s circle, but for now, they both enter the offseason after a pretty disappointing season. Fuck ‘em.

Round Two, Game Two: #4 Team Red versus #2 Team Green

-Certain guys just have a knack for denigrating themselves. I’ll never understand it. You would think that if you are constantly the butt of the joke, you would instinctively react by becoming a more defensive, careful person. Not Steve. Fresh off some new drunken weekend highjinks, Steve decided to make HatchetBall history by losing to an undermanned team stocked with teenagers. There’s not much point in rehashing the particulars of the game. Team Red should have won this game by 20. Instead, they lost in OT…to teenagers. Big props to Troy for not only scoring a game-high 31, but for keeping a positive attitude after having 2 of his best players bail on him for the restart. Perhaps the upset of Team Red was his karmic reward and, man, was it sweet to see Steve storm off the court as flustered as a teenager catching his parents having sex. Did you hear that? Teenagers. Unbelievable. Instant Classic.

Championship: #1 Team Orange versus #2 Team Green

-After all the drama leading up to the restart and the various possibilities it presented, in the end, we got a blowout championship game between the #1 and #2 seeded teams. The game was largely irrelevant, as Mark and Jerry were not going to let teenagers get the best of them, but it was still a pleasant capstone to our first season in the Bernadette bomb shelter. This season will be memorable due to switching gyms, re-stocking the league with tons of fresh faces, and the pandemic delay, but I hope we also remember that it also resulted in Mark’s 5^th championship and that he’s still better than everyone else. Kidding aside, this was the season that we not only took over HatchetBall, but that we also made it our own. It will only get better from here. See you next year, chumps.