East Coast Kubb Championship 2019 Recap

DAVIDSON, N.C. — Saturday, March 23, 2019 was a beautiful, sunny day at River Run Athletic Park in Davidson with morning temperatures in the 50s which climbed to 60s by the afternoon. Just as flowers pop up in spring, so do kubb players eager to get outside to play their beloved sport. Twelve teams representing five states competed in the third annual East Coast Kubb Championship. North Carolina’s warmer weather was a welcome incentive for players who made the journey from the Midwest region.

The tournament started at 10 a.m.. after a short demonstration of the gameplay and rules. A total of seven one-game qualifying rounds were played, with four before lunch and the remaining three after. During the lunch break, everyone enjoyed delicious Carolina BBQ with proceeds benefiting the Appalachia Service Project, and many people tested their frisbee slinging skills with a fun Yazoo contest put on by Seaturtle Sports.

After qualifying rounds concluded, the top eight teams went into the championship bracket while the remaining teams were placed in the silver bracket. Round one of championship bracket play began while the silver bracket waited. Teams that lost their match in round one of the championship bracket moved into the silver bracket. Now with eight teams, silver bracket play could start. Both brackets used a best-of-three format.

The silver bracket winners were Bar-B-Kubb (Patrick Loeffler, Chip Permar, Jimmy Peterson, John Pinnix) in first place, King Kung (Chris McDiarmid, Steve McDiarmid) in second, and Cheech and Batong (Drew Gander, Sean Reed) in third.

Now down to four teams, the championship bracket played out with ForTheGlori (Ethan Forney, Cody Glorioso) beating Das Kubb (Nick Bartlett, Mike Davids, Michael Roberts) in the semi-finals 2-0, and after an almost painfully long match against Kubbstaches (Bob Hickes, Bryan Jones, Jake Leavitt), Rhymes With Tube (Dave Giese, Heidi Schwarzenbart) churned out a 2-0 win. Now that the finals were set, teams took a quick break to prepare to battle for the sharp (literally) looking hardware up for grabs.

The third place match saw Kubbstaches struggle to hit 8 meters, losing game one to Das Kubb. After some role adjustments—switching Jones to blaster and putting Hickes on 8s—Kubbstaches was able to pull off wins in games two and three for a 2-1 match and the third place title.

In the first place match, ForTheGlori was up against Rhymes with Tube. Game one kicked off with Rhymes With Tube winning the king lag and Schwarzenbart and Giese both knocking over a baseline kubb. ForTheGlori added one baseline in their first turn. Rhymes with Tube answered with one more baseline kubb by Giese. Then Forney tied things up when he added two more baselines to ForTheGlori’s total, for a total of six kubbs in play. Giese knocked off one more baseline, giving ForTheGlori seven to inkast. Forney drilled a nice pile but one block got away from him on a rethrow and became a penalty kubb. Glorioso and Forney struggled to clear and took turns chipping away at the field kubbs eventually able to pull it off, penalty kubb included. Pitch conditions were definitely changing a bit and Rhymes With Tube’s Giese saw the kubbs he was drilling bounce and roll, resulting in four re-throws—one of which became a penalty. Tube’s suburb-style pile took five batons to clear and their sixth baton cleaned up the penalty kubb. Next, ForTheGlori’s Forney pulled off an unlikely triple and Glorioso took out the last field kubb, leaving Forney two throws at the baseline. Forney went two-for-two bringing the game to nine kubbs in play. Rhymes With Tube left a line in their next turn, allowing ForTheGlori to take game one after Forney cleared a dense cityscape of eight kubbs with three batons and Glorioso slayed the king.

Game two began with ForTheGlori going one for two on 8 meters. Rhymes With Tube added two kubbs in their four baton turn. With six batons, ForTheGlori cleared three field kubbs and added a baseline. Giese answered with two more baselines bringing the game to six in play. Glorioso cleared the field with two batons, Forney went three-for-three on the remaining baseline kubbs, and Glorioso finished with the king. ForTheGlori became the 2019 ECKC first place champions with a 12-0-1 record overall that day.