Members of the Cumberland Table Tennis Club were joined by players from Powell River, Nanaimo, Duncan, Victoria, Vancouver and Vernon for the fourth annual Dodge City Table Tennis Tournament Dec. 9. There were 53 players in junior, women’s and open divisions.
Cumberland Coun. Gwyn Sproule participated in the women’s division — won by Uschi Lesley of Victoria. Brenda Holden of Powell River was second.
Vy Tran of Nanaimo was the only female in juniors but nevertheless won the division. She beat Yusuf Salif of Duncan in a close final. Local youngsters Finn Mann and Jaydon Moore fought it out for first place in the junior B division with Finn hanging on for the win. Other local juniors Sam and Lukasz Kuzma, Zech Bae and Sam Schum had some great matches and will likely be contenders for medals next year.
In the open event, Bogdan Sokol of Victoria repeated last year’s victory in a tough win over Eric Tran of Nanaimo. The match went the full five games with Sokol outlasting Tran 14 to 12 in the final game.
Though local up-and-coming star Max Porcher did not reach the final, he had some great matches but lost to Tran in the quarter-finals.
Winners in other categories:
•open consolation: Igor Masalkin over Petr Havlik, both of Victoria;
•recreational: Vicram Shivahare over Vy Tran;
•recreational consolation: Adam Kuzma over Mark Kouba, both of Cumberland.
Sokol teamed with Masalkin to win the open doubles over Tran and Charlie Zengh of Nanaimo.
Brothers Parhham and Arishia Alamian of Duncan won the consolation doubles over the father/son team of Minh and Andrew Ly of Nanaimo.
The club plays Sundays from 2-5:30 p.m. and Mondays 4-6:45 p.m. upstairs in the cultural centre in Cumberland across from the firehall. Drop-in fee is $3.
FMI: contact Adam Kuzma at adamkuzma39@gmail.com or (250) 703-3994.