Opening Ceremony
Lara Wallentine helped organize a great tailgate party and we had plenty of volunteers out to have fun and help out. We picked up our first victory when we won the Spirit Award for the night. Then it was on to the relays for the Track and Field event (below). The highlight of the evening was the relay featuring 8 Special Olympians. The enormous crowd was on their feet and cheering.
TI won the Track relays on Friday night, but the other track events are schedule for later.
Racquetball (1st place - 10 points) Event Results
I didn't make it over to racquetball, but they apparently didn't need me cheering them on. They swept the Mens (Bill Breden & Steve Enty), Womens (Maria Mott & Marcy Mach ), and Mixed (Sylvia Pas & Eric Jubin) games and dominated the event. Great job!
Bowling (2nd place—8 points) Event Results
Mary DeLaCruz 429; Ann Powell 502; Kermic Powell 470; Jim Powell 604; Todd Clatanoff 698
Ann Tran 501; Diane Wallentine 531; Neville Burgess 544; Craig Boyle 630; Ernest Harwell 683
The TI Team totaled 5592 (avg of 186.4 for 3 games for 6 man / 4 women). Unfortunately they were 42 pins behind Nortel and took home the silver.
Horseshoes (2nd place –8 points) Event Results
The Men’s Team (Bob Graham and Keith Rogers) took the silver. The Mixed Team of Callie Kent and Bob Spain) took the bronze. The Women (Tammy Fletcher and Angela Rogers) also took the bronze to give us an overall 2nd place and 8 points. Nortel won.
At the Labor Day weekend break Nortel led TI by 2 points (28 to 26). 19 events to go.
MINI GOLF (1st place—10 points) - Event Results
The mini golf team was perfect in sweeping all three events. The Men (Jerry Swan and Neal Waygood) took the Men’s title by a tie-breaker, the Mixed (Jerry Swan and Mary Lou Manning) took the mixed title just one stroke short of the Corp Challenge Mixed record. Then the women (Mary Lou Manning and Karen Swan) dominated the match by 7 strokes. Nortel took 2nd in the event.
TENNIS (1st place—10 points) - Event Results
This was a close one with TI, Nortel, and RISD all battling for the overall win. The TI Women (Celesta Caldwell and Lan Tran) took 4th. The TI Men (Steve Jenkins and Deepak Ramappa) took the silver, and the Mixed (Nipuna Gunasekera and Heather Presley) won the gold to give us a one point total edge over Nortel in Tennis and critical 1st place points.
SOFTBALL (2nd place—8 points) - Event Results
We drew the first round bye and RISD sent Nortel to the losers bracket. We beat RISD and won our other games to move to the final, but Nortel fought it’s way through the losers bracket. Nortel beat us twice to take the championship. The overall race was all tied up at 54 points each – each team with (3) 1st’s and (3) 2nd’s.
5K RUN (1st place—10 points) - Event Results Individual Results
Lita Alessandra came out on her 46th birthday to run her first ever 5K. Luke Luo just flew back from Asia and showed up in his pajamas. We got him a uniform and the two led a solid TI team to victory by a large margin. Luke was 2nd overall male and Ken Heap and Scott Steffen were 4th and 5th overall. Lita was 6th overall and Lisa Wesneski was 10th overall. Diana Susler was her usual amazing self rounding out the team. Thanks to all the other runners who came out an ran so well too. Overall it was TI and Nortel – 1 and 2 again.
With 7 of the 22 events complete TI held a slim 2 point lead over Nortel (64-62).
DOMINOS (2nd place - 8 points) - Event Results
Two teams complete for each company and their place score is combined. One of our teams came in 9th out of 13. The other came in 2nd. Those points combined to give us the Silver by a single point. Most importantly Nortel finished 7th and 12th which placed them 5th overall. The two TI teams were captain Bob Graham and Richard Mach, and Pam Barr and Jim Barr. We opened up a 7 point overall lead in the competition!
SOCCER (3rd place – 6 points) - Event Results
We moved easily through our pool winning three games (3-0; 4-1, and 3-0). Then, the City of Richardson and TI battled to a 0-0 tie. They edged us in the penalty kick tie-breaker. The TI Team came back and took the bronze medal game, but Nortel won the gold. Thanks to team captain Beres Clarke for his work –soccer is one of the most popular (an vocal) of all our events. The overall lead was down to 3 points.
BADMINTON (2nd place – 8 points) - Event Resuts
This event has been TI vs. Nortel since it started. We’ve won it every year, but this time Nortel edged us. The TI Mixed Team (Adrian Chan and Vivian Zhu) won the gold. The TI Men (Bobby Lai and Joe Lin) lost a very close match – Nortel beat us early, we came back thru the bracket and beat them, then they prevailed in the final match. The Women (Yanni Chen and Huimin Xia) also made it the finals but were edged out by Nortel. Thanks to captain Claude Cirba. The overall team lead was down to one point.
15K BIKE RACE (1st place – 10 points) - Event Results Individual Results
We’ve won this every year, but our top two females were sidelined with a major case of pregnancy – in fact Kelly Stark gave birth to twins on Wednesday. Her husband, the somewhat sleep deprived Les Stark (21:46 – 25.7mph), and captain Jason Cook (21:43 – 25.75mph) were the top 2 overall finishers. Martha Parks (working with husband Dave) was the first overall (22:58 – 24.3mph) female and Melissa Hewson (24:12 – 23.1mph) was 4th overall female. Great job team. Nortel took 2nd.
With of 11 the 22 events complete TI held a very slim 3 point lead over Nortel (96-93).
TRACK AND FIELD (1st place -10 points) - Event Results
We took the two relays at opening ceremonies, then came back and won every other event to sweep Track and Field. Aaron Hall and Benjamin Sarpong won the Men’s 100m and Long Jump. Mariquita Gordon and Tara Larzelere won the Women’s 100m and Long Jump. We didn’t get any help from the other teams and Nortel took 2nd in the event. Our lead was up to 5 points.
PUNT, PASS, and KICK (4th place—5 points) - Event Results
This event was rained out a couple of weeks ago and our two women couldn’t attend the make up date. Several females had a quick tryout and ended up doing OK (Christy Rogers and Elizabeth Salazar). The men (captain Dave Rothenbury and Roli Ochoa) each had one shank and we slipped to 4th. Unfortunately, Nortel won and just like that we were all tied up again.
FLAG FOOTBALL (4th place—5 points) - Event Results
We lost our opening game to COR, but came back and beat Siemens and Alliance before falling to COR in a rematch. We took 4th. Nortel finished 2nd to move up by 3 points.
GOLF (4th place - 5 points) - Event Results
The wind was howling, but it blew the same for everyone. The morning team (Chris Palmer, Angela Rogers, Ryan Thorpe, Neal Waygood) shot a 62 which was the 4th best. The afternoon team (Becky Gallup, Roland Johnson, Mike Saltamachia, Jerry Swan) shot a 62 as well, which was 2nd best in the strongest wind. The total was one stroke short of going to a 3 way tiebreaker for 2nd. We finished 4th (there’s a trend developing here). Nortel was one stroke ahead in 3rd.
With of 15 the 22 events complete Nortel led by 4 (125-121).
BILLIARDS (6th place - 2 points) - Event Results
After winning billiards the last three years the Magic 8 Ball came up with some bad news this year. We ended up in 6th. The only saving grace is that Nortel finished 5th and only picked up one point on us. Thanks to captain Michelle Boyer for pulling together the team.
DARTS (1st place - 10 points) - Event Results
Tom Form always puts together excellent teams. This year we won the Men (Kerry Dalton and Max Simpson) and the Mixed, and took Silver in the Women’s. Nortel took 5th and suddenly we were up by 2 points.
SWIMMING (2nd place - 8 points) - Event Results
RISD came out strong to avenge their one point loss last year. Typical of the way things have gone this year the TI Team captain Scott Summerfeldt has a last minute conflict and had to drop out, and Derek was battling an illness. In the 50M Freestyle our Men (Derek McEachern and MJ Blasiak) and Women (Beth Smith and Lara Wallentine) both won the Gold. In the 50M Backstroke our Men (Derek McEachern and Bob Fleck) took Bronze. The Women (Beth Smith and Sara Liu) took the Silver. In the 50M Breaststroke the Men (Derek McEachern and David West) took Silver and the Women (Yasmine King and Beth Smith) took Silver. We were tied with RISD going into the final 200M mixed relay. RISD edged us by a few tenths of a second to win the overall swimming title. We took 2nd and Nortel was 3rd.
With of 18 the 22 events complete TI led Nortel by 4 (141-137).
VOLLEYBALL (3rd place - 6 points) - Event Results
We had never finished better than 5th. We had a great draw this year and took full advantage by winning our first two matches. RISD beat us then Nortel, who had been beaten by RISD earlier, worked their way back through the losers bracket to beat us. RISD beat Nortel to win and we took 3rd. Good job by Captain Tim Taylor to improve our standing this year. We were still up by 2 points overall.
BASS FISHING (5th place - 3 points) - Event Results
Our fishermen (Captain Ron McMaster, Greg Jarman, Steve Whaley, and Travis Wieck) did their homework. They visited the lake and experimented with lures, but like several events this year things just didn’t go our way. We took 5th place and, unfortunately, Nortel won.
With of 20 the 22 events complete Nortel led TI by 5 (155-150).
TABLE TENNIS (1st place—10 points) - Event Results
On Monday Night the Women (Cindy Xei and Vivian Zhu) lost to Nortel in their second game, but fought back through the bracket and beat them twice to win the Gold. On Tuesday night the Mixed team (George Fang and Jin Zhou) beat Nortel in the opening match and moved through to the final. Nortel won 4 matches to reach the final, then beat us twice to take the Gold. The Table Tennis Gold and possibly our team title rested squarely on the Men’s Team on Wednesday. George Fang and Thomas Mathew were perfect in going undefeated and knocking out Nortel in the final to give us the overall title. Thanks to Mouli Vaidyanathan for captaining (with strong help from Vivian).
BASKETBALL (1st place—10 points) - Event Results
The basketball team swept through the bracket undefeated to take the gold medal. Nortel lost their opening game, but battled back to reach the final against us and took 2nd. Great job again by Dan McKeon to put together a solid team.
And the 2005 Overall Winner is . . .
By a single point (171—170) Nortel edged TI.
Overall Standings
http://www.quickscores.com/cc/index.php?Year=2005
Most importantly, the TI athletes donated over $2,500 to Special Olympics.
TI Team Coordinator: Paul Westbrook
