News: Gold Racquetball - Week 7
| Date Published |
Author |
| 3/11/2026 12:00:00 AM |
Zeke Churchill |
As The United States barreled towards the twenty first century, our sporting culture kept pace and continued to help define what it meant to be American. NARD and racquetball as a whole set the underlying tone for what constituted competition in the 1900’s. After the association's numerous financial successes throughout World War II and the following decades, NARD found itself in a position to greatly improve American infrastructure and quality of life. The path towards truly helping America and its people rested in the final frontier. In the 1950’s the Alaskan railroad was still in heavy use and NARD invested heavily in the economic stronghold, even setting up a corporate office in the small town of Seward where the southern terminus of the railroad rested. Through the following decades the railroad in Seward came and went as an institution but NARDs presence in the small town resulted in an interesting cultural fascination with racquetball. Year after year competitors from the small town of Seward gain notoriety as racquetballs best, either through national competition or international scrimmages. NARD had put Seward on the map as the epicenter of the sport.
You are Seward’s penultimate competitors. The Seward Gold League represents some of the best racquetball competition that this town, and truly the world, has to offer. In our final week of play we had two games take place at our scheduled game times. Let’s dive in.
Match 1: Zeke v Francisco
In our first match of the evening we had a heavyweight bout between Zeke “E-Babey” Churchill and Francisco “I’m Just Here For Volleyball” Sanchez. Francisco spent ample time warming up with kill shots, passes and ceiling shots, Zeke warmed up by changing his mind twelve times about whether he should start wearing a headband. In game one the tension began early, Zeke gained a couple points off of quick serves to Francisco’s backhand but Francisco fired back. The two trade serves and Francisco eats into Zeke’s early lead. At a critical moment Zeke took the service box and yelled “I HAVE THE POWER!!” and tried to rip off his shirt but it was too tight. He decided to serve instead and wins game one 15-1
In our second duel Francisco wasn’t going to be denied. In quick succession he rallies off 2 points and puts Zeke on his heels but then quickly remembered that he had to start warming up for his team’s volleyball playoff match and abandoned the service box. Zeke serves soft lobs to an empty room and takes game two 15-2.
Match 2: Izzy v Fred
The evening's second match had truly begun years prior, when Izzy and Fred first teed off against one another in Seward’s top competitive racquetball league. Izzy mentioned in a passing comment to me earlier in the afternoon that he had been waiting to beat Fred in a match for multiple seasons. Izzy came into game one like fire and hot grease. He serves a sizzling series of sonic shots to Fred’s backhand and takes a commanding lead. Izzy then made a critical error, he allowed Fred to serve. Fred turns on his signature backhand serve that lands directly in the corner, how does he keep doing that?? Paired with a couple well placed kills Fred battles his way back. At the outset of the run Fred is down 14-6 but soon battles back to 14-12, unfortunately it was a flash in the pan. With a flourish Chef Izzy sprinkles the final seasoning on his masterpiece and wins game one 15-12.
Back in the kitchen again for game two (wait this isn’t pickleball) and Fred starts as hot as a grill. I like to call him the Maitre D with the way he’s serving. Fred dices up 4 quick points before Izzy can get out of the weeds. Izzy finally finds a flow state and screams out “YES CHEF!” before dialing in some wicked passing shots to battle back within striking distance. Izzy takes the lead at 10-9. In a final explosion of flame and flavor Izzy ends Fred’s hopes of a Michelin star by winning game two 15-13.
Our regular season is over and our playoff picture is set! Brad currently sits in 3rd place but unfortunately cannot join us for the playoffs so we will be elevating the competitors in 4th and 5th place. With his play towards the end of the season, Zeke passes Jamie in the standings for the 1 seed by the slimmest of margins going into the playoffs. He takes on Fred who now sits as our playoff 4 seed. Jamie with a strong regular season holds the 2 seed and will face Doyle who claims the 3 seed. Thank you all so much for playing and participating in a fabulous spring racquetball league.
We are planning on playing all of our playoff games next Monday, March 16th. Here is your playoff schedule:
Monday, March 16
5:00pm - Semifinal game 1: (1) Zeke v (4) Fred
5:45pm - Semifinal game 2: (2) Jamie v (3) Doyle
6:30pm - 3rd place game: Loser of semifinal 1 v Loser of semifinal 2
7:15pm - Championship game: Winner of semifinal 1 v Winner of semifinal 2
| Standings W7/Playoffs |
| Place |
Player |
Wins-Losses |
GW |
Point Differential APG |
| 1 |
Zeke |
6-1 |
12-3 |
6.3 |
| 2 |
Jamie |
6-1 |
13-4 |
5.2 |
| 3 |
Brad |
5-2 |
12-5 |
4.8 |
| 4 |
Doyle |
4-3 |
8-7 |
-0.8 |
| 5 |
Fred |
3-4 |
8-9 |
0.8 |
| 6 |
Izzy |
3-4 |
7-10 |
-0.7 |
| 7 |
Mel |
1-6 |
3-12 |
-8 |
| 8 |
Francisco |
0-7 |
0-14 |
-9.6 |