Whitesell 2-0 Vs Reiff To Capture Title!

The Football Strategy tournament kicked off with 14 players for the first Heat. This action followed the annual one-hour demo of the game, which had 5 gamers attend. This game is one that can be learned how to play and be competitive, but not necessarily mastered, during the demo. As a result, if you’re ever interested in adding this fun game to your repertoire, join the demo and then start enjoying what you learned.

For those of you not familiar, the annual WBC Football Strategy tournament has a simple format. We play two Heats which are separate single-elimination events. Afterward, the winners of those Heats play one another for the overall championship in the tournament. The other finalist is the second-place finisher. The defeated opponents from the Heat finals earn 3rd and 4th place respectively and so on to determine the top 6 laurelists.

Following the demo, 14 players showed up for the first Heat to start the journey to snag their spot in the tournament Final. Defending champion and thirteen-time winner, Bruce Reiff took on Mark Gutfreund in his first-round match. Mark put up a good fight, but in the end, Bruce prevailed by a 27-16 final score. Doug Galullo had a high-octane offense working to take down Chris Kennington 41-14. Ken Whitesell was another player who was hitting on all cylinders to wrap up a 33-6 victory. One more blow-out was by Owen Kyrollos over David Schneider, 26-3.

Keith Hunsinger claimed he had never won a Football Strategy game before, but he had a last-minute goal line stand to knock off the GM, Bert, in a tight 17-13 affair. Keith can make that claim no more! Two-time winner, Kevin Keller survived a tight match to pull out his first-round win by a 24-19 score over Jay Matthews. John Ohlin put up a valiant effort against 2022 finalist, Paul O-Neill. In the end, Paul secured the 23-16 win, to conclude first round action.

In the second round, we had a rematch of the 2022 Final between Paul and Bruce. Once again, Bruce came out on top. Unfortunately for Paul, it was just not his day as the final score of 43-6 was one to forget. Owen dropped out of the heat following his win, so we had only two other second round games. Neither of them where very close as Ken took down Keith 29-10 and Doug knocked off Kevin by a 26-14 final score.

As the most current former champion still in the field, Bruce got a bye in round 3. Ken and Doug matched up in an epic game that went right down to the end. Ken was successful in running the clock down to the very end before he kicked the game winning field goal to earn his spot in the Final by a 23 to 20 score.

The two remaining players to make it to the heat Final knew that despite their success to this point, the last hurdle of the heat was going to be a challenge. In the end, Ken met that challenge as he was able to take down the defending champion by a relatively wide margin of 27-13. Ken Whitesell secured his spot in the Final and knew that he had the luxury of skipping the second Heat if he chose to do so. A heat winner has the option to play in the second Heat. If they win both heats, they are automatically the champion without the need to play a Final against themselves.

Ken did decide to participate in the Wednesday evening second Heat. He was joined by 11 other players, five of whom did not participate in the first Heat. Unfortunately, his first Heat dominance was not on display on Wednesday as Thomas Scarlato knocked him off without too much angst by a 26-18 margin.

In the other games, there were three more blowout wins. Bruce beat Owen by a 27-10 score, David Rynkowski, who missed the first Heat due to a conflict took down Stephen Peeples by a comfortable 27-10 score, and Stuart Tucker crushed Bert like a grape in a laugher by a 31-7 score. Keith Hunsinger reverted to his history with Football Strategy, falling by a close 21-16 score versus Kevin Keller.

The last game of the first round of Heat two was a very tight game between Paul O’Neill and Jason Schultz. The game went down to the end of regulation time without a winner being determine due to the tied score at 16 each. In overtime, Jason managed to secure the win with a field goal. It was a tough tournament for Paul as a return to the Final was not in the cards for this three-time champion in the event.

Round two saw Kevin easily get past Thomas by a 38-17 score. This earned Kevin a bye into the heat finals against an opponent to be determined. The other two second round games were much tighter affairs. Stuart kept the game close, but Bruce prevailed 17-9. David and Jason had an exciting and close game that Jason was able to pull out by the final of 20-13.

This left us with Bruce versus Jason in the Heat Semifinal. For the third straight game, Jason Schultz kept the game close and he put a small scare into Bruce but it wasn’t enough as Bruce didn’t get his 13 wins in this tournament without knowing how to pull out the tight games. Bruce edged Jason by a one score margin of 29-22, setting up a Heat Final versus Kevin for the right to face Ken in the Final.

Unfortunately for Kevin, there was no keeping it close in this one. The two competitors have had some great games over the years, but this time it was Bruce’s day as he knocked Kevin out of the tournament by a 41-16 final margin. This set up a tournament Final as a rematch game between Ken Whitesell and Bruce Reiff, the two finalists from Heat 1.

It is tough to beat Bruce once in this tournament, let alone twice. That was the challenge that Ken was facing. In the end, Ken was up to the challenge as he prevented Bruce from capturing his fourteenth first place plaque in the event! The championship game was getting away from Ken in the early going as Bruce built up a double-digit lead. Ken fought back in the second half and was able to tie the game by the end of regulation at 24-all. The overtime saw Ken drive the ball down the field and into the end zone for a 30-24 victory! This was Ken’s third win in the Football Strategy tournament, his first since 2016.

Congratulations to him on a great job and to Bruce and the other laurelists for their accomplishments. We are already looking forward to next year’s convention and Football Strategy tournament. Hopefully, you are too! Come join the fun if you can.