April 24 was another exciting meet for the Lansing Lightning Flippers women’s league. We had a high turnout of 12 players, which made for a tidy three groups of four. In addition to most of our usual players, we had a new player, Danielle – a friend of Lexi, I believe. Danielle did quite well for her first league night, finishing just a couple of points below the median.
I was in the top group with Tim, Mackenzie, and Amy. It was a very tough group and I was very pleased with myself to come in second, just two points behind Tim. Tim had first choice for the night and led by picking Ghostbusters, which was also one of their choices last league night. I was a little surprised because they had not finished first on it last time, but I realized that they must have decided (with some justification) that my performance last time was a wild fluke unlikely to be repeated. Instead I managed to come out on top again and Amy got second. Tim and I switched places when it was my turn to pick. I chose Medieval Madness and took third to Tim’s first, this time with Mackenzie getting second. There were several exciting games and I thought my group had a really competitive but fun night.
I still had one Lansing Pinball League shirt in size medium left over from the last time we had shirts made a few seasons ago. After being unable to give it away at the open league several times it had ended up forgotten in my attic. I dug it out again and brought it as a giveaway item, which Jen won (right after commenting, “I could probably wear a medium”).
We also had our usual one-ball tournament on The Flip Side, to try to get players rated. Linda put up one of the best single-ball scores I’ve seen, while our frequent champion Tim had a near house ball. In the finals, Linda prevailed over Danielle, Stephanie, and Amy.
Our league meeting tomorrow will be the last of the season. We will be having our final qualifying session immediately followed by the playoffs. The playoffs will take the top seven players (or eight, if we get any more new players) to a fast ladder finals. Ladder is a very unpredictable format since a single loss knocks someone out, so it really becomes anyone’s tournament to win or lose. We will also be playing three, count ’em, three one-ball tournaments to try to get ratings for anyone left who still needs them!