Grand Canyon State Games
There was no shortage of skill at the Grand Canyon
State Games held February 22-26 at El Mirage, Arizona, but there were some matches where the talent ran especially deep.
The Women’ s Doubles Age Groups 19 +, 35 +( 19 +) featured Melissa McCurley and Sara Ash defeating Cat Grant and Linh Ansboury, while the Women’ s Doubles Age Groups 19 +, 35 +( 35 +) had Christine Barksdale and Joy Leising winning over Jamie Knoph and Shonda Schallenberger. In the women’ s main event, the Women’ s Doubles Skill 19 +: 5.0, Barksdale and Leising weren’ t able to bring the win— losing to Sarah Ansboury and Christine Mc- Grath.
But the big winner over the course of the four-day tournament was Dave Weinbach, who took home four gold medals for four separate partnered matches. Weinbach won the Mixed Age 19 + with Sarah Ansboury, Men’ s Age 19 + with Scott Moore, Mixed Open with Sarah Ansboury, and the Men’ s Open with Kyle Yates.
“ I was fortunate enough to get the gold in all four events that I competed in,” Weinbach said.“ Going into the tournament, I felt comfortable in all the events because I knew I had partners that enabled me to have the potential to win all events.”
In regards to Sarah Ansboury, he added that her competitiveness and ability to“ hyperfocus” on the game at hand was key to those wins.“ She’ s such a solid player; she really has no weakness,” he explained.“ You can tell she’ s had a history of competitive sports. In mixed play, women get 90 percent of the balls, and they determine who wins and who loses. Sarah’ s in the top two of women we have in the game.”
For the Men’ s age division, Weinbach said his history with Scott Moore and the talent Moore brings to the net has them aiming for a three-peat for 2018’ s tournament.
“ I enjoy playing with Scott; he’ s the top senior men’ s player in the country,” Weinbach noted.“ He’ s a beast once I can get him to the kitchen line. He lets
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