All Botched Up season four Bocce second place
Total Deboccery season four Bocce third place
Bada Bing season four Bocce Champions
John Humphries
The Robson Ranch Bocce League was able to successfully complete its fourth season, despite what the local news reported as the “wettest October” in North Texas history! The three divisions managed to “wade” through the scheduled season with only the newly formed Capone Division, which played on Thursday nights, able to finish the full ten-week format. All divisions had to deal with make-up matches after rain outs, even when some of the rain out dates got rained out! In the end, teams that normally played their matches on Wednesday, were only able to complete either six or seven weeks of the eight week program. This required scoring results to be adjusted to make all 30 teams as equal as possible going into the Championship Tournament.
Teams that finished in the top five in their division joined a single “wild card” team, from the remainder of the pack, to form the “Sweet 16” playoff format. The tournament was played as a single elimination event that was held during an entire afternoon – between more rainy days and an abundance of other Robson activities. All teams were seeded based on their regular season performance and divided into Groups A and B. The first round of these two groups would have destroyed most office bracket pools as the top two seeds in Group B fell to the long shots! The matches of the remaining “Elite 8” were held next, with the losers going home. The “Final 4” consisted of top seeded Bada Bing Bada Bocce winning over fourth seed Beers & Balls, both from the new Capone Division, and 14th seeded All Botched Up defeating 15th seed Total Deboccery from the original Soprano Division. Strangely, there were no teams in the finals from Corleone Division. Winners played winners and the losers played for third and fourth place prize money. This season’s champion was Bada Bing! All Botched Up came in second, Total Deboccery third and Beers & Balls fourth place. Every team making the tournament went away with prizes; some more than others. The three top teams in each division received additional prize money for their outstanding regular season performance.
There continues to be more and more residents that express interest in joining the Bocce fun, which will likely lead to a forth division being added next spring. Rumors around the Ranch have been calling for some type of “permanent” court placement, not unlike those currently, or planned, for our sister developments in Arizona. As always, a special thanks to all those on the grill staff that supported the over 300 Bocce League team members!