Centurion Chrissy. It has a nice ring to it. Somehow it is only fitting that the winner of the Princess Ryan's Star Marines tournament should be a little blond girl. After all, the game is named after the designer's daughter, who, although now in college, at one time looked much like13-year-old Chrissy Fratelli.

The march to become the first centurion in the Fratelli household was a long one. Chrissy has been playing PRS since WBC was Avaloncon. Always a strong shower at the juniors' tournaments, this year she graduated to the seniors' division - and proved that youth and beauty can defeat age and treachery.although it was very close. Veteran Marine Paul Saunders was only three points behind Chrissy (124 to her 127 points) to finish second. Angela Collinson, another (if a few years older) teenage girl who has been playing PRS since the juniors was only nine points behind and took third place. Dan Hoffman and Jon Gemmel took fourth and fifth (116 and 110 points, respectively) besting last year's champion Nick Henning (sixth place at 107).

The narrowness of the 20 point point spread from sixth to first place was not the only mark of how close a tournament this one was. Angela Collinson, for example, won her table in both rounds, and rescued the princess in both of her games. In the second of those games she did this against one of the best Black Guard players in the history of the game - last year's champion, Nick Henning. That fight was such a close-run thing that although the marines won, Nick as the Guard inflicted so much damage that he came in second in that game - with 66 points to Angela's 68. It was a duel of epic proportions between the light and the dark, and the light only squeaked through at the last moment.

Paul Bolduc, the 1999 champion, was a marine alongside Angela on that table. In one battle where Angela put down 38 points to bolster the marines, Nick played such a strong combination that the marines still lost the skirmish. This led Paul to make the gloomy declaration: "I think we're thwacked." When the marines finally did win the final skirmish by a narrow, narrow margin, he proudly beamed "we came back from the dead!"

Chrissy also faced very tough opposition in her second game, as veteran player Chris Villeneuve played the Guard so well that the marines barely made it off the beachhead and had to regroup on the SECOND space of the board. Hit by both the Gauntlet and the Doomsday Bomb, the marines took such heavy losses that two of the five marine players were out of men by the time they left the beachhead.

The other tables were also close on round 2. Dan Hoffman played the Guards on his table with such skill that one of his marine opponents, Chip Jensen, cried out "Marines, we are getting beat! We don't have what it takes to win these battles!" His comrade, Jordan Flawd, agreed, adding "yeah, the game is much more brutal this time around." Flawd, Jensen, and the other marines on that table ran out of time and went down in defeat to Hoffman's Guards.

Paul Saunders fought his last battle of the tournament with noticeable glee. His comment that "I had a very good round. I kicked the s-t out of them!" was set up by Marine Alex Bell, who summarized the marine play in this sentence: "Well, we missed the mall and ran into the Gauntlet, then got chemically hosed. " Bell, who was in charge of the bungled march said he knew "we were doomed" when he drew Lt. McLaughlin as the leader (McLaughlin is the worst officer in the deck, and is named for the designer).

Although round 2 was the tough round that separated the victors from the vanquished, round 1 had its moments. The tables were assigned randomly, and by ill or amusing quirk of fortune resulted in two familial grudge matches. Paul Saunders and his son Michael squared off against each other, and Michael drew the Guards on that table ("That'll turn you to the dark side," he said, once he saw he was up against his dad). Michael did very well. Paul Bolduc was on that table as a marine in that round, and was knocked back so hard that he chirped "he shmucked me!" (Paul has a reputation for using such colorful terminology, and has endeared himself to all as one of the most amiable sportsmen: the only thing more fun thanwatching Paul win is watching him lose; he does it with such grace and panache).

On another table it was Nick Henning vs Karl Henning, brother vs brother. Nick's reaction was simply "oh, my God, no!" but Karl welcomed the task, gleefully noting how "I have lived in his shadow long enough."

As anyone there can confirm, it was a day of unusually tight, tough competition - perhaps the strongest and closest in the history of the PRS tournaments. On such a day, it was only fitting that the centurion's wood should go to someone who epitomizes what a true member of Princess Ryan's Star Marines should be: a little blond 13-year old girl, with a bright smile and a lot of attitude.as they say in the marines, "It's better that way!"

Meanwhile, in the faroff land of Spokane, a forlorn dentist each morning tiptoes into his daughter's room to admire the bauble hanging proudly on the wall, sighs deeply and emerges shaking his head in disbelief as he trudges off to another day of filling molars and extractng incisors.

 Only 11 pint-sized star marines showed up for the Juniors version of Princess Ryan's Star Marines, but that didn't stop Vincent Alonso from garnering some genuine Junior Wood. The other finalists were:

2nd - David Rennert, MD

3rd - Natalie Beach, MD

4th - Sarah Welker, OH

5th - Jacob Hebner, CO

6th - Zack Dunn, VA

But as everyone who plays Princess Ryan's Star Marines knows, "It's better that way."