Valentines Shootout at Marina Park Racquetball Courts

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by USA Racquetball

37 doubles teams participated in a two-day Valentines day shootout at the Marina Park courts, longtime home of the Outdoor Nationals event in July.  Pool play whittled down the fields in each division to a playoff single elimination draw. 

Here’s the winners of the four divisions competed:

Upper Division: Micah Rich/Jason Geis defeated Geoff Osberg/Luis Avila 21-13

New Southern California resident Geis, a powerful lefty who has major Outdoor 3-wall doubles titles to his credit, teamed up with long-time outdoor specialist Rich to top a field that included several future hall of fame outdoor players to win the title.  This is a team to be reckoned with at the upcoming Outdoor Nationals event on these same courts.

Lower Division: Damian Zamarano/Terry Kisling defeated Pio Motera/Tom Quiroz 15-2

Two Phoenix outdoor players made the weekend trip to Los Angeles and avenged a pool-play loss to take the Lower division title. The potent Lefty/Righty pair dominated the final for the win.

CPRT Division: Tony Burg/Scott St. Clair defeat Josh Tucker/Greg Solis 21-20

Burg/St. Clair proved their mettle once again as a team, topping the hall of fame team of Tucker/Solis in the final. Burg/St. Clair also won the Vegas 3WallBall Centurion event last October, where they beat #1 player in the world Kane Waselenchuk and Gary Durbin in the final.

Mixed Division: Jeremy McGothlin/Katie Neils defeat Sam Barrera/Victoria Rodriguez 15-10

Phoenix area pro Neils teamed up with solid outdoor regular McGlothin to win the mixed draw. Neils made some noise with some great mixed results in the 2020 Vegas event.

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Thanks to Jesus Ustarroz and Geoff Osberg for running the event, which drew a healthy crowd of top outdoor players from Southern California and beyond.  These two also run July’s Outdoor Nationals event and have been for a decade. Thanks to Stephen Fitzsimons for capturing the results and posting them online. Fitzsimons is an outdoor racquetball photography expert as well, and for years has captured and posted amazing shots of outdoor players in action from Outdoor Nationals and Vegas events.  He also posted a number of great shots from this weekend's event online. 

Lastly thanks to Jeffrey Thomas, better known as "JT R Ball" online, who setup cameras and broadcast from the event all weekend, providing streaming and commentary of the sunny SoCal courts to the rest of us, who were mostly stuck in the freezing cold. If you do not follow/like his Facebook page Daily Racquetball, you're missing out on the best single source for racquetball information out there. https://www.facebook.com/DailyRacquetball/  and subscribe to his blog at http://jt-rb.com/.  (Additional matches were streamed throughout the weekend by Ginnie Mahinay Boetel, Erica Williams, Jerry Hall, and Pio Mortera on their personal FB feeds).

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