DAVIDSON, N.C. — The morning started with some heavy showers overnight and into the morning leaving the pitches good and soaked to greet the kubb players arriving at River Run Athletic Park in Davidson. A “cool” 60 degree morning eventually warmed into a nice sunny and 80 degree afternoon, which made for an amazing day for kubb, albeit very windy.
The tournament was made up of 13 teams from nine states, with seven rounds of qualifying play in the morning before being split into a championship of eight teams and a silver bracket of the remaining five. After the qualifying rounds, there was a tight finish at the top between Rhymes With Tube (Dave Giese, Heidi Schwarzenbart) atop the leaderboard alongside Kubb On (Bryan Jones, Kyle Weakland) as a close second. Kracken Beer (Dan Corey, Mike Horengic) were in third, and Glori Holtz (Cody Glorioso, Adam Holtz) rounded out the top four.
After the first round of championship play, three of the top four teams all advanced with Kracken Beer being the only top four team to lose with a tight 2-1 loss to 650 Mafia (Mike Davids, Bob Hickes). In the semi-finals, the close matches continued, with top-seeded Rhymes with Tube winning game one versus Glori Holtz, only to drop the next two games. In the second semi-final, Kubb On won game one against 650 Mafia, lost game two, but was able to win the third game to advance to finals against Glori Holtz.
The finals started off slow, but then before you knew it, the first game was over. After Glori Holtz opened with two misses and Kubb On was only able to get one of their four, Glori Holtz only added one more in their first turn with six batons. Kubb On inkasted the two kubbs and cleared them with one baton. Jones got a turkey, knocking down all three of his 8 meter attempts and allowing Weakland to get the last baseline kubb with his first try, leaving one baton for the king and game one.
In game two, Kubb On’s hot-hitting subsided, only able to get their first 8 meter on their third turn after Glori Holtz already downed three in their first two turns. Progress stalled for both teams with the 20 plus miles per hour wind blowing diagonally across the pitch. Both teams were only able to get one baseline per turn until the match got to seven kubbs in play. On that turn, Glorioso was able to clear seven kubbs with three batons. Only one baseline remained, and Holtz was able to get it and the king with his remaining batons to make the match all square at one game a piece.
In the final game, Kubb On started with a 2-1 lead on 8 meters before going cold for two turns, unable to add to their small lead. Glori Holtz took advantage by getting two more on their next turn to take the lead with five kubbs in play. Glori Holtz then went cold for two turns and were unable to add any more baseline kubbs, allowing Kubb On to get one each of the next two turns to regain the lead with seven kubbs in play. Holtz then inkasted a great pile that Glorioso was able to clear with only two batons. Holtz then stepped in and finished the game, going two-for-two at 8 meters and slaying the king to win the 2023 Queen City Kubb Spring Fling!
Final Results
Championship Bracket
- Glori Holtz (Cody Glorioso, Adam Holtz)
- Kubb On (Bryan Jones, Kyle Weakland)
- 650 Mafia (Mike Davids, Bob Hickes)
- Rhymes With Tube (Dave Giese, Heidi Schwarzenbart)
Silver Bracket
- We Here Bruh (Joe Harbert, Landon Harbert, Reid Harbert)
- Das Kubb (Nick Bartlett, Michael Roberts)
- Piss Missiles (Bryant Cook, Brian West)
- Oops, I Kubb’d My Pants (Leo Enwright, Jon Eury)
