Reiff Wins 14th Championship!

Following the annual demo for the Football Strategy event, which showed (or refreshed) players on how to play this fun game, the tournament was ready to kickoff. The 2025 tournament started with 20 players competing in the first of two single-elimination Heats. The top 10 ranked players, based on the latest published AREA ratings, were separated into one group referred to as the favorites and the remaining players were in another group, the underdogs. A random draw by the players matched up a player from one group to play against a person from the second group.

Defending champion Doug Galullo overcame a stiff challenge by Jay Horton to prevail with a final score of 30-20. Thirteen-time champion in this event, Bruce Reiff, made quick work of Ronald Haas, 30-7. Jason Schultz also scored 30 points in a winning effort over Scott Pfieffer, who put 20 points on the board. Two-time champions, Kevin Keller and Bert Schoose both scored 33 points in their first-round wins. Kevin defeated Chris Townsend (33-24) and Bert beat Ralph Gleaton (33-12). Michael Schoose won by the largest margin of victory with a comfortable 34-7 win over Owen Kyrollus. Stephen Peoples scored the most points in the first round with another comfortable win, 42-17 against Riley Gleaton. Paul O’Neill had a strong performance by taking down Michael Polcen 25-6. Three-time tournament winner, Ken Whitesell had a tough draw against his long-time friend, Ray Stakenas. Ken prevailed in this one by two scores, 28-14.

The closest match of the first round saw the first underdog prevail in the tournament as Chris Kennington took down David Rynkowski by a final score of 26-20. The favorites won 9 of the 10 games, showing that skill matters in this game. Of course, just like in “real” football, an underdog can pull out a victory at any time with the right combination of skill, timing, and on occasion, a little bit of luck. Whatever it takes!

The 10 winners of round 1 were matched up in round two based on the original draw from the first round. Bert was matched up with Michael and the father prevailed over his son by a 27-7 score. Jason had a tough match versus Chris, but in the end, he was able to advance with a 24-13 win.

Stephen, who as we mentioned had the highest point total in the first round, ended up scoring only 6 points (the lowest score of the second round) in a 27-6 loss versus Bruce. Ken put up the most points this round by defeating Paul in a tight 35-30 shootout. The final match of this round saw Doug score late to squeak out a victory over Kevin by a 30-27 score. This kept his hopes of a repeat tournament win alive.

With 5 winners advancing to the third round, three players earned byes while the other two were matched up to play. Byes are given to former champions in order and so Doug, Ken, and Bruce were given those byes. Bert and Jason played and they ended up playing the tightest match of this Heat. Jason made six field goals and played stout enough defense to hold Bert back and he advanced with a well-earned 18-17 victory.

Unfortunately, Jason wasn’t able to repeat his victorious outcome in the fourth round as he played Bruce tough, but it wasn’t enough as Bruce continued to play great defense in a 20-10 win to advance to the Heat final. In the other semifinal match for this Heat, Doug was able to hold off Ken in another tight one, winning by a final margin of 27-20. The Heat final didn’t go Doug’s way at all as he managed to score just 13 points, while Bruce’s offense was rolling in the 42-13 win. Bruce won the first Heat and quite impressively allowed a total of 36 points (an average of 9 per game) in his 4 victories.

The second Heat, saw 10 players sign up. Two of them, Stuart Tucker and Jeff Mullet, indicated that they did not want to advance if they won their game so we matched them against one another. They played a very tight game which saw Jeff prevail victorious by a 23-21 final score.

Among the players looking to advance, Doug defeated Ray rather handily with the only game with a large point differential by a 31-10 score. David squeaked by Ken with a field goal, advancing with a 23-20 victory. Garrett Cimina, who wasn’t in the first round, pulled off a huge upset by taking down Kevin in a low scoring affair that ended with scoreboard showing Garrett ahead 14-10.

The tightest score in the first round of the second Heat saw another upset as Jason avenged his first heat loss to Bruce, by holding on for a 25-24 win. This outcome guaranteed that Bruce would need to win a championship game against whichever competitor emerged from this second Heat.

With the small number of entrants in this heat and the one winner choosing not to advance, we were quickly down to a final four, without needing to dispense any byes. The relatively tight scores from the first round of this Heat continued in the second round. Defending champion Doug rolled past Garrett by a 21-12 score. David pulled out another close game by taking down Jason. Their score was 22 to 16.

That set up a Heat final between Doug and David. Unlike the earlier games, David won this one rather easily by a 28-10 score. Doug’s dream of back-to-back championships ended and David, who has often been very competitive in this event without bringing home the championship was now one step away from the glory.

Unfortunately for David, Bruce played the championship game like he did his earlier first Heat games, stout defense and enough offense to pull away from his opponent. As the final time boxes were ticked off on the scoresheet, the scoresheet revealed a 22-10 win for Bruce securing his 14th championship in this event, a very impressive feat, congratulations!

As always, we can’t wait for next year’s Football Strategy tournament. We hope that you’ll consider joining in on the fun and strive to be the one to knock Bruce off his perch as he vies for a 15th championship plaque in this event! Try to make room on your schedule and join in on the fun if you can.