2022-2023: Week 5 Player Reports

Game 1: Team Orange vs. Team White

-I was actually pretty interested to see this game. I was wondering if Orange could show a little something extra and I was wondering if White was worse than we thought. That could have led to a good opportunity for Orange to start some type of attempt at a turnaround. Instead, Orange was the recipient of one of the worst calls in HatchetBall history. The refs allowed an after-the-buzzer shot by Dan Brandner to send it to overtime, where it promptly hit another one (the second one being definitely before-the-buzzer). But before you feel too badly for Orange, they were in control of this game for most of it. They let it slip away in the back half of the second half and put themselves in a position where White had a chance. White played an atrocious game, or at least Rob did. He was disinterested the entire game with zero aggression while none of his shots fell. If not for Carter/Chris Koll/Brandner stepping up, this game would have been a blowout by the winless Team Orange. Instead, fate intervened and Matt Koll sinks to 0-4 on the year.

Game 2: Team Yellow vs. Team Blue

-Yellow was missing 2 of its starters, which was bad timing against the now-complete Team Blue who hung an all-time beatdown on them. Matt V’s boys might just shrug this one off, but there is a mental scarring that occurs when a team beats you this badly. It’s hard to shake off. Not much to analyze on the Yellow side of the ball, but Blue continues to share it well and get up the court. Those look like the major components of their success. Let’s see if they can keep it rolling in the next few months.

Game 3: - Team Purple vs. Team Green

-I guess we can call this game an upset alert, but it really didn’t look that way on the court. For as connected and skilled Team Green looked against Team Pink in the first half of Week 4, they looked like an old, slow pile of manure for this entire game. Purple was missing 2 starters and Aderman was a non-factor for most of this one, taking some really bad shots at times. But it’s become clear, Green has no answer for a secondary scorer. They let Mark get anything he wanted in Week 4 and let Brian Lyle destroy them in Week 5. Then, it looked like they lost all the effort plays in this one, leading to a bunch of easy baskets for the rotation guys on Purple. Yellow will laugh off their slaughter by saying they didn’t have their full roster. Purple showed up with 5 guys and beat what was supposed to be one of the better teams. As always, the your chances will depend on your own expectations of yourself and what you’re willing to do to win. Congrats to Purple on a huge, impressive win.

Standings

Team	Captain	Win	Loss	Record	Win %	Streak	PS	PA	DIFF
Pink	Mark Koll	3	0	3 - 0	1.000	W3	203	164	39
Purple	Jerry Hahn	3	1	3 - 1	0.750	W3	238	219	19
White	Rob Knapczyk	2	1	2 - 1	0.667	W1	187	180	7
Green	Kyle Garmes	2	2	2 - 2	0.500	L2	269	263	6
Yellow	Matt Vitaliano	2	2	2 - 2	0.500	L1	203	238	-35
Blue	Dave Troy	2	2	2 - 2	0.500	W2	287	247	40
Black	Steve Dudek	1	3	1 - 3	0.250	L2	220	260	-40
Orange	Matt Koll	0	4	0 - 4	0.000	L4	234	272	-38