Beer Pong Tournament - Part Duex

Week two of the weekly Seattle Beer Pong Tournament was another instant classic.  You can read here (Week 1 - Beta Test) about the standard procedures and happenings at these tournaments, so I won’t bore you with the same old details.  We can sum it up as: lite beer - check, random girls - check, tournament turned party - check, yelled at by a neighbor - check.

The real highlight, however, has become the budding rivalry between Team Diggles (Me & Toe) and Team Mitch.  These two teams have met in the finals at every single Seattle Beer Pong Tournament in recent memory, and it has always produced an air of competitiveness in line with Lexington Steele and Foosball.   In week 1 of the Tourney Team Diggles fell into the losers bracket early, only to win 6 straight to meet Team Mitch in the finals.  The finals would prove a test, however, as Toe and Myself were giving up home court and had to win 2 in a row over the undefeated Mitch’s.  Fortunately, thanks to Toe and his “He’s on Fire!”, Team Diggles was victorious and crowned the 1st champion in the history of the Tournament.

Team Mitch, clearly embarrassed, continued to taunt their defeaters throughout the following week.  And I don’t blame them.  The Mitch’s are basically professional beer drinkers, while Toe and I tend to be partial to the mixed drink and occasional red bull.  The Mitch’s are known in the Northwest for their acumen in caps, flip cup, quarters, and of course, they are veterans of the German Boot.  They, along with most of the competition, assumed that their skills would easily transition into beer pong.  And I’ll admit, through the week we began to second guess ourselves and our skills over at Team Diggles HQ.  Was our victory a mistake?  An accident?  LUCK…

With 10 teams and a new bracketologist, Week 2 was lining up to be less exciting, with Team Diggles set to meet the Mitch’s in the 2nd round.  It was early in the night still and the excitement was still lacking.  Toe and Myself sent the Mitch’s packing to the loser’s bracket early, but only because Mitch himself hadn’t yet hit his stride…3 hour pass…And lo and behold, Team Mitch had worked their way through the loser’s bracket to find themselves in the finals again.  Team Diggles had a much easier route and hadn’t played for upwards of 30 minutes.  The pressure was building and I was feeling the rust when Toe turned to me in a brilliant moment of clarity and exclaimed “now is our chance to make these guys the ‘Douchebag’s of the Week’!!!”.

It was dead even ealry. 1 Cup, 1 Cup.  2 Miss, 2 Miss.  1 Cup, 2 Miss. 2 Miss, 1 Cup. 1 Cup, 1 Cup. 2 Miss, 1 Cup.  And then, as if out of nowhere I heard a deafening screech….”HE’S ON FIRE!”, Mitch screamed out.  I quickly turned to Toe in horror, “What?? Did he say ‘he’s heating up’ last round?”.  “I don’t know, I don’t remember, I don’t know.”  An onlooker soon verified that he had and forced us to return the little white balls back to Mitch for his extra attempts.  It was now 3-2 in favor of the Mitch’s and like NBA Jam, they handed the ball to their Tim Hardaway and sent him well beyond the figurative 3-point line.  All was surely lost.
However, also at that very moment, and no doubt in response to Mitch’s ridiculously loud screaming, a friendly neighbor stopped by right outside the fence, and in what I would call a hypocritically loud voice of his own, ended our fun.  We were to remain quiet for the rest of the Tourney “or else”, it was threatened.  After a few minutes of laughing and belittling the neighbor for saying “or else” to a bunch of 26 year olds at 11pm, we did just that and were quiet.  And then a magical thing happened, the eerie silence seemed to break Mitch’s will, turning him quickly from “Hardaway for 3″ to “and Shaq comes to the free throw line”.  Needless to say, he missed, and Toe and myself quickly dismantled the rest of their cups and victory was ours, ensuring the 1st time was no accident.  4-0 SONS