Back in Winston-Salem, NC

Jason, his friend Crystal and children

Even though we played on Saturday this weekend (see prior post re: Charlotte, NC), a few of us were able to play on Sunday as well--this time at Miller Park in Winston-Salem. We had a visitor near the end of the day from La Boule New Yorkaise. Jason Cheek, whose parents live in Liberty, NC, showed up to play a game or two. He is considering a relocation to North Carolina from New York. We hope their loss may be our gain!

Charlotte, NC

Daniel, Jordan, Jeff, and Jacob

We were made aware of boules courts in Nevin Park by a friend of CarolinaPetanque, Dr. Ed Shoaf of Charlotte. He sent us a snapshot, so, of course, we couldn't wait to try them out! Though Ed wasn't able to join us due to holiday travel plans, we managed to get together a group of CarolinaPetanque players and some visitors for a great afternoon of play. Our visitors were comprised of Daniel Smith, president of Boules de Leon in St. Augustine, Florida, along with his brother-in-law, Jeff, and his nephews, Jordan and Jacob. Jeff, Jordan, and Jacob actually live in Charlotte; we hope they'll join us again soon. Daniel happened to be visiting the area in regards to work obligations. We had met him previously in play at Amelia Island, Forida.

Valdese, NC

Jane Gantt and her husband, Steve, played at the Waldensian Presbyterian Church boules court in Valdese, NC, over the weekend. Jane invites anyone in the area who would like to try playing there to contact her through CarolinaPetanque@yahoo.com. Shirley and I look forward to trying it out in the very near future.

New Members

From top: Fred Marchant, Jane Gantt, and Steve Gantt.

We are pleased to have Fred, Jane, and Steve as the newest members of CarolinaPetanque. Fred is from Winston-Salem, NC, where he lives with his wife, Faye. Jane and Steve are from Morganton, NC. Fred was a walk-up player at Miller Park this past summer. He has since become one of our most regularly attending players. Jane&Steve are Augustin Quilici's sister-in-law and brother-in-law. [Jane is Susanne S. Quilici's sister.]

Welcome to the three of you and we hope you'll enjoy our group.

Autumn leaves

The Sunday before Thanksgiving found eight of us at Miller Park in Winston-Salem, NC. Augustin's wife, Susanne, and Fred's wife, Faye chose to visit rather than play; so, we had a triples match. In a best-of-three series, Fred/Juan/Gary narrowly defeated Shirley/Augustin/Marc in three games. The shortened days at this time of year made it necessary to play the final end in near darkness. Guess we'll have to move our starting time to one o'clock for a while.

Hickory, NC

There were ten of us for petanque at Augustin/Susanne's Hickory, NC, terrain on Saturday. Though many of the games were very close, the team of Shirley/Logan/Gary played into the darkness to defeat Augustin/Susanne in the winners' bracket.

Logan's friend, Mike, played for the first time and seemed to have a knack for pointing. We hope he'll join us again before too long.

Quilici Crew at Amelia

Augustine and Susanne's granddaughter, Jacie.

Brian, Jacie, Susanne, and Marc.....Stacy, Marc, Augustine (John Hayes in background)

Augustin and Stacy................Steve and Jane

Stacy, Marc, Augustin........................................Augustin points the way

Susanne C. Quilici sent some snaps of the gang. Thought I'd share a few with the rest of the group. Anyone else want to share?

Amelia Island, Sunday, 11-14-2010

Philippe and Christophe congratulate the winning team of Jean-Michel Laulhe and Stephane St. Croix

Juan and Mo beat Claudy and Jean-Pierre!

Marc and Stacy

............................................................Uijin Park and Lauren Gioscio

Sunday was a beautiful day for the final play of this year's Petanque America Open. The first round consisted of four categories based upon rankings/seedings resulting from Saturday's play. The losers of first-round play dropped down one notch into a sub-category for the balance of play. For example, Shirley and I began the day in Concours A. This category consisted of the highest ranked 32 teams of the original 112 teams.

However, we lost our first game on Sunday to the very fine team of Juan Garcia and Mamary Coulibally. Therefore, we dropped down into sub-category Aa. The same thing happened to losing teams in Concours B (losers dropped to Concours Bb), Consolante A (losers dropped to Consolante Aa) and Consolante B (losers dropped to Consolante Bb).

Thus, there were eight categories of play for the single-elimination brackets that were drawn up at that point. So, we played in the second highest category-- Concours Aa. We managed to win our first elimination game against a fine team from Seaside, FL, but were not so lucky in our next game against a strong New York team. So we were out after three rounds on Sunday. The NY team that beat us, Yngve and Leila Biltsted, went on to finish second in Concours Aa, so that made us feel a little better. Plus, they were really nice folks!

None of the rest of the CarolinaPetanque teams fared much better-- all were eliminated by no later than the quarter finals in their respective brackets except for Marc and Stacy who, after losing their first match on Sunday to our own Terry & Sue, made the semi-finals in Consolante Bb. Congratulations, guys!

There was one other bright spot for Carolina teams. Though not (yet!?) members of CarolinaPetanque, Uijin Park and Lauren Gioscio from Boone, NC, won the Consolante Bb. We'll definitely be trying to recruit them in the near future.

Amelia Island, Saturday, 11-13-2010

Susan Steger, Mayor of Fernandina Beach, Florida

Augustin giving Claudy a few tips?..........................Stacy, Claudy, & Marc

White t-shirts in center: Will Grant and David Mason (Amelia Is)........Walt and Khalid

Peggy, Shirley, and Bobby.......................Mario Gagne and Ben Gauthier (Canada)

Jason and James Wright (GA)................................Marc, Stacy, John, & Augustin

Logan, Susanne, Susanne, and Juan.........................Notice the drummer?

The field of 112 doubles teams (224 players!) played five games each on Saturday. CarolinaPetanque teams had won/lost records of:

John/Augustin...5/0. Khalid/Walt...4/1. Gary/Shirley...4/1. Bob/Donna...3/2. Steve/Trey...2/3. Marc/Stacy...0/5. Terry/Sue...0/5.

The won/lost records don't begin to tell the whole story. Since there was no pre-seeding for the draw, some teams were luckier than others regarding the strength of their opponents. Our game scores were 11-2, 11-2, 11-1, 6-11, and 11-0. [Saturday games were shortened to eleven points.] Contrast that with Terry and Sue who lost at least one game 10-11 (maybe two?) and had to play the Canadian Team of Laulhe/St. Croix (who won the Championship and were reigning Champions of Canada!). Or with Steve and Trey who had to play Juan Garcia/Mo Coulibally. And Steve/Trey won! Juan/Mo then went on to beat Claudy Weibel and Jean-Pierre Subrenat on Sunday. Claudy is current world record holder of petanque shooting and a former world champion. Jean-Pierre was this year's team USA captain at the world finals in Turkey!