Two Volunteers Needed for Sunflower Wickets Benefit on June 2

The MCA seeks two more volunteers to supervise games at the Sunflower Wickets Croquet Tournament in Olathe in the afternoon of Friday, June 2.

The tournament is a benefit for the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop & Farm in Olathe, and MCA has supported it with equipment, officiating and tournament administration for many years.

The golf croquet games run from 1:30 until 3:30 p.m. on the day of the event. Sunflower Wickets will be held at the Olathe Community Center, 1205 E. Kansas City Road, Olathe, KS 66061.

Email Dylan if you are able to volunteer.

Read more information about Sunflower Wickets.

MCA States Shield: Missouri Wins 7-3

PARKVILLE, MO -- The veteran Missouri team didn't leave much to chance in the final rounds of the inaugural MCA States Shield held on Saturday morning at the Kactus Creek Croquet Club in Parkville, Missouri as they rolled to a 7-3 win over Kansas.

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MCA States Shield: Missouri Leads 2-1

PARKVILLE, MO -- Under the threat of rain that never developed, the inaugural MCA States Shield Golf Croquet Test between Missouri and Kansas got underway on schedule last night at Kactus Creek Croquet Club in Parkville, Missouri. The first round was a doubles game between Dylan Goodwin and Darin Watson for Kansas and Matt Griffith and Steve Jackson for Missouri. Kansas kept it close for the distance despite Goodwin scoring a hoop for the Missouri team on a long clear early in the game.

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2016 MCA States Shield Teams

The golf croquet test between Kansas and Missouri is being called the MCA States Shield in anticipation of adding more state teams to the test in 2017. Goodwin World Media is providing a "MacRobertson" style shield for the event. The schedule follows and the key change from the prior announcement is that the event will start on Thursday night with two rounds and finish on Saturday morning.

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GC Test Announced: Kansas vs Missouri

The MCA has announced Saturday, May 21, 2016, as the date for a new golf croquet team test to be held at Kactus Creek Croquet Club in Parkville, Missouri. Full details are still under discussion, but the concept lines out as a test between three-player teams representing Kansas and Missouri. Dylan Goodwin will captain the Kansas team and Matt Griffith will captain the Missouri team. 

The format will include one doubles game and three rounds of singles games. That means all players will play against all of the players from the other side. If the series is tied, one final doubles game will be played. The game format is likely to be seven-point games with 75-minute time limits.

Right now, the captains are starting the process of selecting two teammates each with the primary requirement being that they must be a resident of the state that they represent on the date of the event.

Missouri has a deeper pool of players to pull from as Griffith and Steve Jackson both carry international GC rankings. Kansas currently has no players with official ranked golf croquet game experience.

"Selection will be a bit subjective for the launch of this event," said Goodwin. "The key is to just give this a trial in year one and if we like it, I suspect you'll see a more formal selection process next year. You might even see some selection events develop out of this."

One detail that has been decided is that the event will forgo treating the test games as ranked GC games. However, it will move toward that in year two.

Goodwin said, "This is something I've wanted to try for several years and I want to keep it simple and make it fun. With the USCA Midwest Regionals being hosted here in Kansas City as a golf croquet event in June, it seemed like the perfect time to give it a go."

2015 Sunflower Wickets Mahaffie Croquet Tournament

Teams are forming now for the Sixth Annual Mahaffie Sunflower Wickets croquet tournament.  This unique event is hosted by the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop and Farm Foundation in support of the preservation, programming and promotion of the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop and Farm Historic Site located at 1200 E. Kansas City Road in Olathe. 

Sunflower Wickets will be held Friday, June 5 at the Olathe Community Center, located across the street from the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop and Historic Site. Event registration begins at 1 p.m with croquet play from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wicked Wickets Happy Hour runs from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Prizes will be awarded to the top four finishing teams at 4 p.m. in the Olathe Community Center.

Croquet was a popular, inexpensive sport throughout the country in the mid-19th century. Tables of eight are available and two-person teams are now forming.  For more information about forming a team or tournament sponsorship opportunities, visit Mahaffie.org, contact Mahaffie at (913) 971-5111 or email Mahaffie@olatheks.org.

VIDEO: http://bcove.me/38v2aov1

Kansas Scorcher

LEAWOOD, KS -- The MCA returned to Leawood, Kansas on Saturday in a big way as the the 2014 Kansas Challenge set a new record for player entries with 17. That eclipsed 12 entries for the same event in 2013 and shows the steady growth that the MCA is enjoying in the second season of the Nine Wicket Series.

GALLERY 1 | GALLERY 2 | GALLERY 3 | OFFICIAL SCORESHEET

On the courts though, the big story was the battle against the heat as the temperature reached 92 degrees in the afternoon. The Kansas Challenge had play across three divisions with Dylan Goodwin taking the Pro Division, Ron Millican winning the Gold Division and newcomer Nate Benz going 4-0 to win the Silver Division.

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Topeka Croquet Club Looking to Launch

TOPEKA, KS -- MCA representatives Dylan Goodwin and Bill Berg travelled to Topeka on March 14 to meet with Frank Chaffin and Keath Allen regarding the development of a croquet club that would operate next to the Hy-Vee on Wanamaker Road.

Chaffin owns the internet radio station WREN based out of Topeka and he is interested in developing a club to provide a good interactive activity for families and friends in the area. WREN Radio would be the primary sponsor for the proposed club.

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MCA Championship Returns to Belton

BELTON, MO -- Bill Berg reported yesterday that an agreement to hold the 2014 MCA Championship at Markey Park in Belton, MO with the Belton Parks and Recreation Department has been reached. The event will be held Saturday, September 13 and will be for the top qualifiers in the respective MCA Nine-Wicket Series points races. Players must be members to participate in the MCA Championship, but there is no entry fee.

The event will be one week prior to the USCA's Nine Wicket National Championship which is set for September 19-21 in the Kansas City area. The MCA Championship should provide a good warm-up for that event.

Behind the scenes, the MCA is also close to announcing another regular season event. The target for 2014 is four regular season events in addition to the MCA Championship.

2014 MCA SCHEDULE TO DATE

02/22--AGM (Kansas City)
05/17--T-Bone (Lee's Summit)
09/13--MCA Championship (Belton)

Detailed Schedule:

http://missouricroquet.squarespace.com/2014-schedule/

PeakVision Leawood Challenge: Miller Begins Streak

Miller and Clouse in the Pro FinalLEAWOOD, KS -- Paul Miller took his second straight MCA tournament with a 28-16 win over Greg Clouse in the Pro Division Final of the PeakVision Leawood Challenge. In the Gold Division, Deborah Millican took the title with a 21-7 win over Bill Berg in the final.

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In the Pro Division final, Clouse looked to be in good shape as he ran his break through the turn until he croqueted a ball out of bounds near 11PW from the turn stake area with a hand shot. That's right, Clouse got enough power on the nine-wicket style hand stop shot to travel at least 30 feet. Of course, the game was held on court two which was the fastest of the three courts, and in this case it was costly for Clouse.

He did have a chance later in the game, but he roqueted his partner to work on an attack toward blue with his red ball. Unfortunately, he was dead on blue and in an odd twist Miller mentioned it to him before he actually hit the blue ball. Still, it was a damaging error and it helped Miller snatch control of the game.

Not only was it Miller's second straight tourney win, but he's also got a nine-game winning streak going as he was a perfect 6-0 in the event.

Gold FinalistsGold Final Experiences Sequence Issues

The Gold Division Final between Berg and Millican will mainly be remembered for a lengthy delay due to a potential out of sequence play midway through the game. Unfortunately, although something appeared to be out of whack, neither player could piece together the actual sequence error.

Play had to continue as the balls lay. It seemed to fire up Millican though as she went on a tear shortly after to roll to a 21-7 win. Berg was the only player to work in six games during the event so fatigue could have also been a factor.

Prize Package

Click to Find Out More About PeakVision's SD7 ModelKansas City Croquet Club member Paul Moore and CEO/Founder of PeakVision Sports came through with a great set of prizes. Finalists in both divisions were each awarded a of pair PeakVision Sunglasses.

Pro Playoff Results

ROUND ONE
#3 Robert Fournier over #6 Greg Adams 27-15
#4 Ron Millican over #5 Dylan Goodwin 21-17 

SEMI-FINALS
#2 Greg Clouse over #3 Robert Fournier 22-21
#1 Paul Miller over #4 Ron Millican 28-14

FINAL
#1 Paul Miller over #2 Greg Clouse 28-16

Gold Playoff Results

ROUND ONE
#4 S. Jason Cole over #5 Keith Berg 23-12
#3 Bill Berg over #6 Carl Distefano 10

SEMI-FINALS
#1 Deborah Millican over #4 S. Jason Cole 22-14
#3 Bill Berg over #2 Jason Johnson 15-11

FINAL
#1 Deborah Millican over #3 Bill Berg 21-7