Renegade Tournament
	December 30, 2000

One tough field showed up for the annual renegade tournament held
by the Arizona Croquet Club.  The big surprise of the tournament
was the very good play of Don Fournier Jr. and the "old" Ren
Kraft doing one very nice triple.

Four players showed up for this years event.  In the first games
Rory Kelley beat Paul Bennett 26 to 14 in what might be called
a B level game.  Don Fournier beat Ren Kraft in great fashion
26-1. Don struggled at first but slowly put his game together,
it surprised everyone.  In the second round Donnie matched up 
against Rory Kelley, only to find Rory an easy piece of meat,
winnning again 26-1.  Paul Bennett and Ren Kraft continued with
the B level play with Paul coming out ahead 26-17. 

The third round was most interesting. Should Paul lose and Rory lose
along with a Kraft victory, second place became the spot to go 
after.  Considering points and play, Donnie could not be over
taken. Kraft surprised the crowd with his "now" usual practice
of playing his best against Rory.  Ren stepped all over Rory 
26-0 TP.  With great weather and plenty of beer, Kelley enjoyed
watching Kraft pull off a wonder triple peel.  Meanwhile Donnie
and Paul started a battle. Paul took two then Donnie a few 
then Paul nine and then Donnie took over.  
Paul would have to not be beat by more than 5 hoops to claim 2nd place -
otherwise Kraft would have it.  
Donnie, began to enjoy the croquet game on the Downtown Croquet lawn by
attempting a TPO, only to find Paul cheering him on.  
Donnie failed on the rover peel and found a bad wire in between him and
the balls retiring to the east boundary to give Paul another go at it.


Paul was able to hit in peel rover and groom a perfect 3/4 leave with both balls in the number
two corner pointing at 3.  Donnie decided to play Blue from 4 and hit the balls in 
the corner.  Donnie proceeded to finish up the game by peeling partner through rover, but
found another fix for one last problem.  The striker ball hit the rover ball after clearing rover and 
Donny tried but could not peg out Black, so he hit yellow down to red and pegged out red and blue.
Paul did not hit blue (needing to run six hoops with a two ball break) and Donnie pegged out.
Donnie won 26-15.  The money pay out was $5 for a 
triple ( only one by Ren ) and the second place getting their
$20 dollar entry fee back.  Donnie walked ( drove) home with
55 big ones in his pocket.  

Plans are now for another tournament
January 6th weekend since the California gang has failed to put
together a Calzona team of any sort.  This failure of not getting a 
team together was by no means a lack of effort on Cal's team
captain Mic Mehas.  He tried and all of us at the ACC thank him
for his efforts.  Shame on the rest of you California boys & girl.

by,
Maynard