June 2025 recap

The June Masters was the largest Masters event since 2008! The teams were very evenly balanced, as many teams had a chance to be in the finals! I think it was also one of the hottest I can remember, Thank you to ALL the participants last Sunday for their attendance and perseverance! I hope to see more former and "soon to be" Master's players who are included in this email at an upcoming tournament this year!

Thank you to Steve Devlin as always for not only supplying the setup equipment, but setting up Sunday! Very much appreciated!

Also thank you to newcomer, Tim Stockwell for bringing and setting up a 6th net so that we could manage pool play more efficiently!

The new website is live, but I will be making some "tweaks" based on some feedback I solicited from a few people. Thank you to Bion for all the years of managing/hosting the website, I have a new found appreciation for all that he has done as I went through this process to get it built! 

https://www.chicagomastersvolleyball.com/

6/29/25 Results:

1	Oosterbaan, Max / Kennedy, Kyle
2	Devlin, Steve / Moore, Caleb
3	Patel, Arpan / Drerup, Zach
4	Prestegaard, Chris / Behrendt, Scott
5	Stockwell, Tim / Filarski, Ron
5	Young, Luke / Koselleck, Joe
7	Germain, Sean / Zurawski, Rich
7	Caraballo, Ervin / Maxton, Patrick
9	Pabellon, Dave / Figueroa, Luis
9	Clements, Eric / Curry, Cris
9	Maher, Tim / Gonzalez, Pedro
9	Bremer, Brian / Olson, Dan

Roll Shots:

This will be a handful of my observations/memories /appreciation of the day, and my attempt at some humor-

New players-  Thank you to Tim Stockwell, Sean Germain, Luis Figueroa, and Eric Clements for joining the tradition of The Master's, glad to officially have you as part of the history!

Most Traveled - No doubt, Kyle Kennedy, and Caleb Moore get the award for traveling the farthest! For honorable mention, there are some "road warriors", Tim Maher and Eric Clements made the road trip from Nebraska, and Brian Bremer drove in from the U.P. Michigan, it was great having you all there!

Best Fans - It was great to see Pedro, Luis (and friends whom we know) hang around for the duration of the event and provide some observant color commentary during the latter rounds of the event, and then to "root" for the home team, which changed every 7 points! The banter was a lot of fun!

Best post tournament spot: Even though we had the biggest event in 17 years, the turnout at the post Masters hangout was a little light, relatively speaking, but it was still nice to hang with some of you afterwards to "hydrate"! Thank you to Kyle & Max for sharing their winnings and buying those in attendance a drink! I also especially appreciate that Max made a 20 mile bike trip to get there just as we paid the bill!

Best upset - Vegas lost money Sunday if there was any pre-match gambling, some excellent games, but to my earlier point it was anyone's tournament to win!

Most fun team - You know it's a successful draw when you hear the words,  "That's great, I actually like you"! The Young/Koselleck team not only played well, but had fun doing it!

More players needed: If you know a player that would enjoy playing with, and they comply with my "no assholes allowed" policy, please invite them! They will appreciate being a part of this tradition.