Last night we finished up the Lafayette Pinball League Winter 2017 season! This marks the 6th consecutive season we have played and scored using PinPortal, and probably the first time we have ever wrapped up a finals tournament before closing time at MSA. Entering the tournament it was really anyone’s to win as over the years our league has become very balanced across the board with our skill levels. Keith was entering at the #1 seed attempting to reclaim the title that he had won during the 2016 Winter Season. Matt was entering as the #2 seed looking to go back to back by following up his Fall season championship. Tom entered at the #3 seed looking to make the leap from a couple of runner-up finishes in recent season back to his previous championship form. Tommy entered at #4 looking to claim a second championship having previously won the Spring 2016 season. Rounding out the bracket we had Ron, Terry, and Dan St. John all looking to improve on recent top 4 finishes in previous season to lay claim to victory, while Craig, Dan Isaacson, Joe, and Chris all looked to shock some people and lay waste to their competition.
In round one Craig, Joe, and Chris were all able to advance over their respective opponents. In round two we saw a series of incredibly close games as all matches were decided 2-1, with the higher seeds claiming victory in each battle likely due to having the advantage of game choice. Keith over Craig, Tommy over Dan, Matt over Joe, and Tom over Chris.
Heading down to the consolation bracket Chris knocked out Ron 2-0, in the battle of the Dans, Isaacson claimed victory over St. John 2-0, and Terry took out the Craig 2-0. Following those victories Chris would face Joe and in the end defeat him 2-0, and Terry would again advance over Dan I. in a nail biter 2-1. At this point they would both be awaiting the semi-final losers from the top half of the bracket.
Tommy took down Keith 2-1, losing on Big Indian, but then claiming victory on Ghostbusters and Star Trek. Matt edged Tom on two consecutive games advancing to the finals for a faceoff with Tommy.
In consolation semi-finals Keith had another full match squeaking by Chris 2-1, while Terry continued his hot streak beating Tom 2-1. Terry had at this point made it from the lowest seed in the tournament down to the final 4. In the end though his run would come to a halt as Keith would advance past him with another 2-1 victory and then await the loser from the Matt & Tommy finals match.
In game one of the finals Matt chose Game of Thrones and headed into ball three with a commanding lead, but Tommy was able to complete Martell adding their add-a-ball power to his Lovejoy start and then start the multiball to surpass his score. From here Tommy choose The Walking Dead where he fortunately eked out a win even though both he and Matt had pretty terrible games. He would now await the results of the Keith & Matt matchup in the consolation finals.
Keith and Matt would come down to ball 5 on game three, Big Indian, to determine a winner. A skill full plunge followed by an immediate outlane drain gave Matt just enough bonus to edge out Keith 2-1 and return for a rematch against Tommy in the finals with the change to force two more rounds of play due to the double eliminations format of the tournament.
Matt and Tommy would now face off for the second time on the night, again with Matt having choice. They would head over to Theatre of Magic. Tommy managed to put together a two multi-ball ball 2 that would give him 800+ million and enough to keep him in the lead throughout the game and claim victory. From there he headed back to The Walking Dead where he had earlier defeated Matt….the result would be the same albeit with a slightly better game for Tommy this time around putting up approximately 42 million to Matt’s 6 million giving him the title for Winter Season 2017 of the Lafayette Pinball League.
As always a huge thank you to Dan St. John for not only opening MSA 5 years ago, but for always keeping the games in amazing condition, for allowing us to host league as well as tournaments at the location, and for always providing new and new to us games. Without all of his hard work we really couldn’t have this league. Please remember that and always continue to be respectful of the games and the location, and again to Dan thank you.
We will be taking the full month of February off from running any league play. Tonight, February 1st, is the finals for January selfie-league. Main Street Amusements will be holding the IFPA State Championship Series on February 11th. We will still have our monthly 3-strikes tournament on February 21st. Selfie league is still running this month and has just gone active today, the games are below.
Lastly, thanks to all the players who come out and compete and just have fun with league. I am hoping to get a few more to join us for Spring Season which starts on March 7th. Please feel free to invite family, friends, neighbors, and strangers to come and join the league. I plan to do some advertising here on our site, as well as through Facebook, and some local bars and maybe even over on campus. I’ve made a series of flyers feel free to copy and share them to any social media that you use as well. See you all at the events over the next month and back for league on March 7th.
Lafayette Pinball League 