We were inspired by the first ever Major League Pickleball team tournament last month so a bunch of us decided that we should have our own ICT MLP team tournament. Michael Harris and Jenny Cole spearheaded the event. They invited 32 players — 16 men and 16 women — to participate and we had our very own MLP event at the Wichita Chicken N Pickle on December 4.

We followed the MLP format where the 32 players broke out into 8 teams of 4 — 2 men and 2 women. Michael and Jenny drew 8 guys randomly and made them team captains and then the captains drafted their team members via a snake draft (to make it more fair — so the captain who gets first pick doesn’t get to pick first every time).

Matches consisted of a women’s doubles game, men’s doubles game, and two rounds of mixed doubles. All the games were played to 15, win by 1. In the case of a tie where both teams won two games each, there is a singles tie breaker round to determine the match winner. All four team members must play in the singles round but players switch out every four points. The singles tie breaker is also played to 15, win by 1, but it is rally scoring. It was so much fun!

HERE’S THE FULL LIST OF TEAMS THAT PARTICIPATED:

Team 1: In It 2 Nguyen It
— Daniel Nguyen (captain)
— Matthew Rochat
— Fong Witte
— Ching Brubaker

Team 2: Tickle My Pickle
— Zach Nguyen (captain)
— Steve Vetter
— Jody Vinson
— Deana Holman

Team 3: We’d Like to Speak to Your Manager
— Ian Carr (captain)
— Michael Harris
— Krista Crawford
— Karen Fox

Team 4: Watchous Win
— Klee Watchous (captain)
— Scott Wolford
— Karen Taylor
— Lesli Toubassi

Team 5: 3 Dinks and a Fireball
— Donnie Lesperance (captain)
— Bobby Weisbrodt
— Tiffany Lesperance
— Missina Sharp

Team 6: The Porn-stachers
— Kyle Starkel (captain)
— Jeff Bally
— Amy Jaramillo
— Rachel McMahon

Team 7: Old Man and His Posse
— Han You (captain)
— Tim Hereen
— Jen Reifschneider
— MariAnn Hereen

Team 8: 20/20
— Rick McKinney (captain)
— Adam Korfhage
— Jenny Cole
— Jen Tiano

We first had three rounds of pool play before proceeding with the single elimination bracket. We started at 7 AM and finished around 5 PM. It was a long day but everyone seemed to have a great time.

The team of Chef Jen, Hanbeen, Tim and MariAnn aka “Old Man and His Posse” won the tournament. Chef Jen is actually the ultimate MLP winner because they held another ICT MLP event (with 4 teams instead of 8) a week later and she was once again part of the winning team. The team that won that tournament consisted of Matthew Nola, Jason Doll, Stephanie Leuters, and Jen Reifschneider.

Anyway, back to first ICT MLP. Here is a group picture of those who stayed until the very end. The matches were long but this format is super fun. If you ever have a chance to participate in a team tournament like this, do it. I highly recommend it!