Trying to catch up on my sleep after my annual exercise in sleep deprevation. We had a record setting turnout at the Texas Team Tournament this year - 49 folks preregistered and 4 more folks as walk-ins, for a total of 53 participants this year, with a number of new faces joining in the festivities. The ASL was going fast and furious for all four days of the tourney with a ton of games played. We gave away a ton of stuff at our raffle on Saturday, with everyone walking away with something. The sponsors were really to be commended this year with the state of the economy and all, but their support was terrific was a big hit for all of the participants as everyone walked away with a least one item from the table.

In the end we had a number of folks walk away with hardware. From the Thursday Opening Assault mini, the team of Paul Chamberland and John Farris took home the Allied and Axis Commander dioramas, respectively. In the other mini on Thursday, for the Omaha Beach landing using CH's "First Wave At Omaha", Jim Ferrell was the lucky participant who walked away with the game. (I'll have some writeups and pictures around the Omaha playing shortly). The Audie Murphy trophy for the most snakes over the course of the tourney was won by Zeb Doyle (28), and in a tour de force Gary Fortenberry racked up a record 53 boxcars in four days to take home the Col. Klink award. Gary was on a torrid pace having acquired 28 box cars over the span of two scenarios, so the fact he wound up with "only" 53 is amazing in and of itself.

For the major prizes, the team of Rob Burton (Houston) and Roy Connelly (Wichita) walked away with the overall Team Tourney prize. And for the individual awards, Mike Seningen (Austin) survived an onslaught by Jim Ferrell (Ft. Worth) to take the overall 10-3 award, with Jim being awarded the 9-2 runner-up.

The website has already been updated for next year, so if you want to register for the 18th Annual Texas Team Tournament, go for it. All the details are on the website, but as always we are the week after Father's Day. That means you should begin planning now to make that trek to Austin from June 24-27, 2010 and join in the fun.

Rick