Post Messenger Recorder -

The tie for first place was broken last Thursday night in the match between the Norsk Cowboys and the Red Mouse Shufflers. The match wasn’t all it was hyped up to be. The Shufflers took a 3-point lead after the first frame, but by the end of the third frame they were down 11. They were able to reduce the deficit by 1 or 2 points in each of the next three frames, but disaster hit in the seventh and eighth frames. The Shufflers ended up losing the match by 45 points. The trail boss for the Cowboys, Don Field, and partner Ferdie Schmitz, lost only their fifth game to Dave and Loretta Herfel and accounted for 119 of the Cowboys’ 416 points. Not a single Shuffler broke 100.

Team Uff-Da, the first half winners, had some tough matches in the second half of the season. But with the championship match only several weeks away, it appears they have found some solid footing once again. They outscored the Morgan Pipe Benders by 12 points and found themselves on the winning side for only the third time this half.

Chief Engineer Opie Taylor, with the assistance of Fireman John Scheidegger, opened the tracks for the rest of the engineers by clearing 115 drifts for the Ope Haus Express. With just one week left to play, the 31-point win over the Norsk Pranksters put the Express in sole possession of fourth place.

Once again, the match between the rodents turned out to be quite a battle. The Ott Haus Cheese Eaters, with their whiskers slicked back, were able to gather one morsel of cheese more than the J&M Bar River Rats. Tracy Funseth and Kurt Buetel gathered the most for the Rats at 113 pieces. Fellow Rats Jimmy Gehin and Steve Ace got that 1-point they needed to barely avoid a skunk at the hands of Cheese Eaters Jeff Buesser and Ed Wettach. With the win, the Cheese Eaters climbed out of a tie for last place.

The match between the Kleeman Hay Shakers and the Viking Trolls saw both the high and low scores of the week. The Hay Shakers shook their booties to a 139-point win. Yes, I said 139 points. Fred Ryser and Al Zimmerman did the most shaking (sorry for that image) for a perfect score of 120 points. Not far behind were teammates Jeff and Jerry Judd, who shook 118 points free. The other two Shaker couples, Roger Truttmann and Don Williams, along with Scott Austin and Barb Judd, each did the jitterbug to the tune of 112 points. The Trolls could do no better than a 95 as their high, with Scott and Jolene Hook coming in with this week’s low score of 64.

Schedule for March 2, 2023: Hay Shakers @ Express (7:00); Shufflers @ Cheese Eaters (7:00); Cowboys @ Uff-Da (7:00); Pipe Benders @ Pranksters (7:30); River Rats @ Trolls (7:00).

Standings: Cowboys, 8-0; Shufflers, 7-1; Hay Shakers, 6-2; Express, 5-3; Pranksters, 4-4; Pipe Benders, 3-5; Uff-Da, 3-5; Cheese Eaters, 2-6; River Rats, 1-7; Trolls, 1-7.