For the first time in 21 months, we played a Guts tournament. The 2021 Wisconsin State Championships featured nine teams competing and eleven rookies in the field. Teams were very well balanced due to Boomtown and Appleton not fielding teams and the influx of new players playing alongside some savvy vets. 

Saturday featured some heat, both temperature-wise and pent-up-blazing-fast-shots-wise. Teams were separated into three pools for round robin and then re-seeded to play a second round of round robin in order to determine the seeding for the tournament. The round robin portion of the day ended with Bahama Mama seeded #1, The Guys seeded #2, Shottle Bop seeded #3 and Buck's Brigade seeded #4. 

In a slight shocker, TM Fitness (featuring Derek Stone, Luke McAullife, Connor Steer, Trevor Bratonia and two rookies) upset The Guys (comprised of Jonathan Luedke, Bobby Cronk, Steve and Mike Buckley, Tanner Beckman and Niklas Jackson) by winning two straight games 21-15. Bop (William and Ron Blau, Carter and "Slim" Al Nettell, Kyle Suvanto and Stephen Dudenas), Buck's Brigade (Donny Klemmer Jr., Luke Lahtinen, Will Walden, Ryan Radawiec and Jake Pruitt) and Bahama Mama (Ryan Scott, Josh Martinez, Michael Banghart, Chris Walden, Korey DeRouchie and Stewart the Rookie) all advanced as well and went to bed Saturday night still in the winner's bracket.

Sunday morning featured two matches that went three games as Bop knocked off TM Fitness (21-18, 20-22, 24-22) and Bahama Mama knocked off the Brigade with three identical final scores (21-16, 16-21, 21-16). 

The winner's bracket finals featured some phenomenal defense as Shottle Bop got the best of Bahama Mama in a three game series where no team ever had a lead bigger than three points. 

That dropped Bahama Mama down to the loser's bracket where they disposed of The Guys to set up a rematch in the tournament finals against Shottle Bop. Game one featured Bahama Mama playing fantastic defense and getting the disc to Ryan and Michael for scoring opportunities and a 21-17 Mama win. Game two (as darkness started to ascend) featured Bop zeroing in on their target and stepping up their defense en route to a 21-18 victory. At this point it was pretty clear to everyone in attendance that a complete final game could not be played due to lack of sunlight. After a quick exploration of options (shootout, game to seven) all parties agreed to call it a tournament and declare co-champions for the first time in recent history. Hugs were had and pictures were taken with the teams together, Ryan Scott was named the MVP, and then we all rode off into the sunset to find cheese curds. 

Thank you to everyone who attended, especially our rookies! Catch you all at the IFT.