OTL Rolls to Final Day, but Top Men’s Teams Find the Trip a Bit Rough

The Old Mission Beach Athletic Club’s 35th world championship over-the-line tournament started to get serious Saturday on Fiesta Island.

After last weekend’s preliminary rounds, in which most players (and spectators) were just there for the shenanigans, the real teams showed up yesterday morning.

Not that winning was easy.

Ask the defending champions and the No. 1-seeded team of the men’s open division: Craig Engelman, Mike Poteet and Phil Zimmerman of Doctor’s Choice Sun Screen. They plunged to the losers’ bracket with an 11-10 loss in their first game, and then struggled through six wins to stay alive for today’s finale.

The seventh-seeded team, Elan Sports, suffered a similar first-round defeat.

The third round claimed two more seeded teams, No. 5 Old Town Mexican Cafe and No. 8 Coppertone’s Beach Club, leaving the winners’ bracket with just four seeded teams among the eight undefeated teams advancing to today’s games.

Those four seeded teams are Zip’s Team Bozo (No. 2), Coles and Souza Construction (3), Local Motion (4) and Beachcomber (6). The other four are Owens Money Men, Pennant Pups, Rusty Surfboards and Ocean Enterprises.

It appears that there has been a stiffening of competition, caused in part by an influx of young players.

“There are so many good young players,” said Dave Hatfield, 26, of Old Town Mexican Cafe. “Good athletes that get out to the beach and practice. The older guys just don’t have the time to do that.”

Kevin Murray, a four-time champion, who is now 26 and playing for Rusty Surfboards said, “It’s a lot tougher than it used to be.”

Only four players on two teams have won championships--Murray and Chuck Cromar (a nine-time winner) on Rusty Surfboards and the Beachcomber’s Billy Bright (2) and John Torchia (1).

The women’s winners’ bracket is much neater. The top four seeded teams are the four winners’ bracket finalists--Pennant vs. Gecko Maui and Rubios Tasty Tacos vs. Pelican Glass. (Gecko Maui played last year under a different name.)

This year’s final could be a rematch of last year’s, when Pennant came out of the losers’ bracket to win two games from Rubios Tasty Tacos.