Spice Girls Win Gold in Pickleball 3v3!

The alarm went off early this morning to get to The Putaway, our indoor pickleball club in Millersville, Maryland. We love this place, especially the people from all walks of life who want to have fun like us. Exercising in the physical “chess matches” as we smash and dink the highlight yellow/green pickleball for hours is an elixir. It’s all truly intoxicating every time I step out on the Court.

Our team name is the Spice Girls because it’s a play on teammate Beth’s last name, Spicer. We are all Sporty (Beth)/Sportie (Deb)/Sporti (me, Terri) Spice.

Let me tell you, it was not easy to win gold because after three rounds of play with other teams of three, we were tied for first place. The tie-breaking singles game used in team pickleball formats (such as Major League Pickleball) when a match is tied is called a DreamBreaker.

None of us had ever played singles before today.

Yikes! My heart was pounding loudly. We also had some help from players watching our game who told us how to play as best as they could. We went straight from playing doubles to this DreamBreaker game. There was no time to prepare except to step onto the court and play the best we could. It was a battle…

From Major League Pickleball - this is how it’s done:

Players from each competing team rotate playing individual singles sequences.

Rotation: Players rotate in a set order after every four rallies.Scoring: Play continues using rally scoring until one team reaches 21 points (usually requiring a win by 2 points).

We won the rally game 22-20! Deb Needle threaded her points to catapult the score and win by two (we also learned that you have to serve to win - she was).

The whole morning flew by with four courts and twelve teams competing. We played in the 3.0-3.5 division. I have to hand it to my teammates; they did sooo sooo good! I am so proud of all our efforts, win or lose. And kudos to the other great teams we competed with today, as we are all friends on and off the courts. It was a super competitive, incredible morning!

Thank YOU! And a big Thank You to Debby Skipp, who puts these little tournaments together.

bSoleille!

Terri

Photo: Spice Girls, Beth, Deb, Terri