Freedom Footbags

The US Open Footbag Championships in Portland Oregon concluded last Sunday, July 8th. This tournament tops the list for recent events that I’ve attended. Major thanks goes out to the event coordinators, in particular Ethan “Red” Husted and Kendall Kic. I regret that I was so wrapped up in Freestyle that I barely got to see any of the Footbag Net events. There was actually an very good turnout for net players - it was on par with the freestyle. The weather was excellent all weekend, and an awesome time was had by all.

Competetitors were well fed at the Player’s Registration party at Kenny Shults and Kendall Kic’s house on Friday night, and the Sole Purpose crew also fed the players on Saturday during the competition. This was much appreciated by myself and the other players!

Without two of North America’s top players from last year (Jorden Moir and David Clavens) attending, Jim Penske was able to sweep nearly every event, with the exception of Sick Trick. For the record, had he simply stepped down his nemesis-rake to a nemesis, he likely would have won that competition as well. The official results, compliments of Soul Purpose Footbag:

Intermediate Big 3

1. Dylan Johnson (Diwalk-Blizzard-Tripwalk)
2. Jake Wren (Paradon-Ripwalk-Down Double Down)
3. Kyle Hewitt (Phoenix-Blurry Whirl-Osis)
4. Zac Jackson (Ripwalk-Paradox Mirage-Ducking Butterfly)

Intermediate Sick Trick

1. Jake Wren (Locomotion)
2. Zac Jackson (Frontside Atom Smasher)
3. Dylan Johnson (P.S. Whirl)
4. Kyle Hewitt (Fairy Ducking Butterfly)

Intermediate Rippin’ Run

1. Kyle Hewitt
2. Zac Jackson

Intermediate Shred 30

1. Kyle Hewitt (145.24)
2. Jake Wren (134.35)
3. Dylan Johnson (119.28 )
4. Zac Jackson (94.49)

Intermediate Routines

1. Kyle Hewitt
2. Jake Wren
3. Zac Jackson

Kyle Hewitt is the 2007 Intermediate US Footbag Champion.

Open Sick 3

1. Jim Penske (Nemesis-P.S. Whirl-Spinning Blender)
2. Justin Dale (Shooting Butterfly-Food Processor-Mind Bender)
3. Nick Landes (Gyro Ducking Butterfly-P.S. Whirl-Spinning DLO)
4. Scott Bevier (Sumo-Fairy Beater-Blurry Whirl)

Open Sick Trick

1. Aaron Orton (Surging Blender)
2. Justin Dale (Apline Food Processor)
3. Jim Penske (Alpine Whirly Gig)
4. Scott Bevier (Montage)
5. Nick Landes (Nuclear Symposium Whirl)
6. Ben Schmaltz (Blurry Symposium Reverse Whirling Swirl)
7. Sam Potter (Food Processor)
8. Daryl Genz (Triple Around the World)

Open Rippin’ Run

1. Jim Penske
2. Scott Bevier
3. Evan Lovely

Circle

1. Jim Penske
2. Nick Landes
3. Scott Bevier
4. Justin Dale

Open Shred 30

1. Jim Penske (240)
2. Justin Dale (176.67)
3. Scott Bevier (168.13)
4. Sam Potter (165.72)
5. Evan Lovely (159.60)
6. Nick Landes (147)
7. Daryl Genz (119.53)

Open Routines

1. Jim Penske
2. Scott Bevier
3. Justin Dale
4. Daryl Genz
5. Nick Landes
6. Aaron Orton

Jim Penske is the official 2007 US Footbag Champion. We’d like to thank Richard Abshire for helping sponsor Jim with the Fearless 55 Footbags he used to win the event. Also, Freedom Footbags helped cover Jim’s travel expenses.

Personally, I wasn’t too satisfied with the way I competed at this event, but as usual it was a learning experience. For worlds I will be planning out a solid Shred 30, because I’m sure that I can at least break the 200 mark. I generally tend to go tripless until I drop and then proceed to drop a bunch of 5 add moves - this really doesn’t bode well in the final scoring, as the results show. Also, I personally thought my triple around the world was better than last place, but alas, I wasn’t a judge, so it’s not my place to decide. I was happy with it nonetheless. My 4th place showing in open routines was probably my best showing in a while. I guess I shouldn’t be too disappointed with 4th in the nation. Though I did have about 5 drops (in 2 minutes) I felt that my variety, execution, and choreography was pretty good, especially considering I’d only heard the song once before. Even though I didn’t win any events, I’m sure that I at least tied for first place with the amount of fun I had at this event, and that’s what it’s really all about anyway - that, and hanging out with a really great group of people.

I’d like to give a big shout out to Kyle Hewitt as well. He’s really come a long, long way in the past two years since first showing up at the Freedom Shredquarterts. Congratulations Kyle for being the Intermediate US Champion!

In general the US Champion is considered to be the winner of the 2 minute routines. This was Jim’s winning routine:

You can download the high resolution version, plus lots move of the competition directly from the Sole Purpose Website.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Sponsorships, Tournaments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.