STOUGHTON, Wisc. — There were a total of 26 teams that took part in the tenth annual Stoughton Kubb Invitational. This was the second year of the tournament being held in May, and teams enjoyed mild temperatures in the mid 60s, but the wind was also a factor averaging 10 miles per hour with some gusts.
Seven rounds of qualifying play led to 16 teams in the championship bracket. With King Oscar Seafood as one of the returning tournament sponsors, the trophies the top teams were battling for this year were circular sardine cans with a clear top to see the fish inside. A custom sticker bordered the clear top with the Stoughton Kubb Club logo, bracket and place. Locking up the number one seed was Beast & The Bulldog (Chad Bevers, Matt Green), a familiar team to the Invitational and winners in 2016. They finished with a 6-1 record with the only loss coming to Ragnarök (Jens Arneson, Lars Arneson). The second seed went to the Eau Claire duo of Tuna Helper (John Ellingsen, Brian Winistorfer) who edged out Ragnarök in the final round of qualifying in a 10-kubb-in-play battle. With the higher opponent score, they got the number two while Ragnarok took the number three seed.
The first round of tournament play was all chalk, except for the four versus 13 seed matchup which pitted TCK (Trevor Bailey, Demian Moore, Chad Stute) against the 2023 runners up, Ready WHAM!! (Caleb Lauer, Andrew Schmidt). This match went to the third game and Ready WHAM!! was able to pull off the upset. With the win, that gave us a rematch of the 2023 championship with Lauer and Schmidt facing off against Left In Suspence (Joe Dekan, Spencer Ollmann). In a similar story to 2023, Left in Suspence was able to best the Appleton area team.
That left us with Beast & The Bulldog versus Left in Suspence and in the other semi-final Tuna Helper against Rangarök. In the first matchup, Beast & The Bulldog took a 2-0 victory with some strong play and took advantage of a short porch in game two to move onto the championship. In the other semi-final, Ragnarök continued to play well and got a bit lucky with two games of uncharacteristically cold 8 meters from Tuna Helper, which allowed them to move on.
In game one of the finals, Ragnarök took advantage of a zero kubb start from Beast & The Bulldog and responded back by going four-for-four. Unable to add any more kubbs in play, Lars Arneson inkasted four kubbs, cleared with 3 batons and Jens Arneson cleared the last baseline with his second baton, and finished off the king for a two-turn victory. In game two, Ragnarök stayed hot and started with a perfect open. Beast & The Bulldog added one kubb in their return. Lars and Jens each added another 8 meter into play on their turn. Green then drilled five kubbs and had a beautiful blast clearing the whole pile in one baton. Beast & The Bulldog could only pick up one additional baseline with those five batons, leaving the hometown team a chance to close with only one baseline remaining. The battle continued for a couple more turns, and with seven kubbs in play, Ragnarök was finally able to close it out with Jens’ chicken dinner (field, baseline, king) for their first Stoughton Kubb Invitational championship.
Tuna Helper found their 8 meter game and took out the defending champs, Ready WHAM!!, claiming the third place cans of sardines.
Final Results
Championship
- Ragnarök (Jens Arneson, Lars Arneson)
- Beast & The Bulldog (Chad Bevers, Matt Green)
- Tuna Helper (John Ellingsen, Brian Winistorfer)
- Left in Suspence (Joe Dekan, Spencer Ollmann)
Silver
- TCK (Trevor Bailey, Demian Moore, Chad Stute)
- Kubb Your Enthusiasm
- Kubb Nerds (Dee Dee Halvorson, Jason Halvorson)
- Porch Pounders 1
Bronze
- Wild Bucks (Bryce Pecore, Everett Pecore)
- Stoop Stompers
- Pitch Wizards (Chris McDiarmid, Steve McDiarmid)
- Sons of Norway Prez Club
