Bob Penotti's Brainchild
On the first Sunday of February, the YM-YHA of North Jersey, located in Wayne NJ, completed an outstanding 1999-2000 hardball season with the finals of its A, B, and C Club championships.

The club boasts two superb American courts as well as a 20-foot converted racquetball court (with the international height tin) for softball play. With more than 50 active hardball players, it undoubtedly has the largest remaining active hardball membership of any club in the country. Built in 1976, the club has run club Championships since 1978, and what began as a handful of participants has metamorphosed into a three flight event involving 36 total entries, in a self-scheduling format.

Bob Penotti, who has played at the club since its inception and who for nearly a decade has been nationally ranked at the 60-70 age-group brackets, has for years been largely responsible for organizing and coordinating these events (as well as the ten-team three-player league, which also concluded recently), and saw his efforts cluminate on this bright and festive sunday morning.

John Cosmi in the A
The A divison was won by John Cosmi , who has been nationally ranked for years in the 50-55 brackets, and who has now won this event four of the last five years. This was the only flight with a full 16 draw, and Cosmi dropped a game each in his quarter with Nadeem Hayat (who played #1 on the league-winning A team) and Howard Topoff before facing Michael Bain in the final.

Bain's course to the final revolved around his hard-hitting style and quickness afoot, which were both working well in his semi-final upset over '99 finalist and second seed larry Baruch, but Cosmi's greater tournament experience proved the difference in a 15-11, 12, and 10 match in which he was never completely in the clear but always in the lead

Mark Stanford kept to his seeding

TheB division also saw the top seed - Mark Stanford - triumph, and also saw a semi-final upset of the second seed. John Borjeson, who moves his bulky frame with surprising speed and who likes to camp out at the T and power the ball, authored this upset, in straight games, over Stan Freifeld, and then proceeded to an overtime first game in the final with the younger and fitter Stanford, whose ability to prolong several points and eventually win that in overtime, had a major role in the four game victory that followed. By virtue of winning this flight, Stanford will be pushed into the A division next year, and he will acquit himself there.

C Division

The C division is limited to players who played in the #3 position on their respective league teams, which probably accounts for the fact that its seven entries were the fewest of any flight. Mark Terry fulfilled his top seeding, with a 3-1 win oversecond seed Mark Hoffman. It is an interesting commentary on the depth of the playing membership at this Y that the #1 and #2 league teams were composed of players who didn't advance far in their club tournament. The top team consisted of Hayat, Serafin Valdes, and Pat McShane; while the number two team was led at #1 by Clive Spiegler and joined by Vincetin and Gary Dorman.

Open Divison Exhibition features Winchester and Dinerman

Following the playing of these three finals, the members were treated to an exhibition match betwen Rob Dinerman (a longtime WPSA north american tour player) and John Winchester, who has been in the top five of the USSRA ranking on several occasions. Their five-game battle consumed well over an hour and was marked by long all-court rallies and was an excellent conclusion to the day's activities.

Still riding the momentum of his tournament win several weeks earlier at the William White and recovered from a minor arm injury that had kept him out of the Atlantic City contest, Dinerman went from 7-7 to 15-8 in the final game, though Winchester's low crosscourt drives and sharply angled reverse corners made perhaps the strongest impact on the appreciative and large crowd of onlookers, who departed with some new ideas to incorporate into their play for next season.