Post Messenger Recorder -

What a night January 31st was for Euchre league! The below normal temperatures and potentially hazardous road conditions caused several players to skip playing. Plus there was a perfect score, a skunk, and a score that will most likely be the low score for the half, if not the season.

Let’s start with the match that had the most highlights, the Cowboys vs. the Cheese Eaters. The Cowboys traveled to New Glarus, a trip worthwhile for Don Field and Dean Disch who gave up just 56 points all night, that’s an average of 7 points per game, to record this year’s second perfect score. The night, however, was not all it could be for the S’Wisco Taphaus Cheese Eaters with none of them able to generate 100 points. In fact, even with George Eichelkraut and Jeff Buesser being skunked by Dean and Don, they didn’t record the low score of the week. That honor goes to fellow Cheese Eaters Giff Hoesly and Bryan Buesser who recorded a 65, which is the low score of the year thus far. Needless to say the Cowboys won big with a 111-point advantage. This apparently was the night of the Norskies and not the rodents as the other Norsk team, the Pranksters, totally bamboozled the Belleville River Rats to take sole possession of first place. The Pranksters had put together a 27-point lead going into the eighth frame against the River Rats, who were fighting hard to stay on top in the second half standings. However, with low scoring by all four River Rat couples in the eighth frame (1, 3, 5 and 8) for a total of just 17 points, the Pranksters secured 43 of the 60 points available to win by 70. Losing only their first game, Jerry Retrum and Laurel Grindle contributed 118 points to the Pranksters score; while Larry Losenegger and Rodney Latham added another 110 points.

Jones’ Plumbing, after struggling to find a sub, traveled to New Glarus on a bitterly cold night and kept themselves in the running by soldering together a 52-point victory over Kleeman’s. The Hay Shakers had trouble heating up their cards as Rick Skindrud and Jeff Goebler were the only couple to reach 100 points.

With their captain back in the mix, the Riley Shufflers fared much better this week than last week with all but one couple contributing 100 plus points to the Shufflers’ total score. While the Mounties had just two couples collar 101 points with the other two bagging only 88 points. Despite this, the Mounties led the match for the first five rounds but finished 28 points short, giving the Shufflers their second win of the half.

Standings: Norsk Pranksters 4-1; Harley Blue Express 3-1; J&M Bar 3-1; Kleeman’s 3-2; Riley 2-2; Jones’ Plumbing 2-3; Norsk Cowboys 2-3; S’Wisco Taphaus 1-3; It’s Time 0-4.

Schedule for February 7: J&M Bar @ Harley Blue (8:00); Norsk Pranksters @ Riley Shufflers (8:00); Kleeman’s @ Norsk Cowboys (8:00); S’Wisco Taphaus @ It’s Time (7:00); Jones’ Plumbing – Bye.