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COSCIA/McKELL win Inaugural "Invitational" Tournament

Venice Beach, CA - The beers were a'flowing, the music was a'playing, and the pigs were a'rolling at the First Annual Pass the Pigs Invitational Tournament on October 10th. Staged at the Venice Bistro on Ocean Front Walk, the inaugural tournament was once again a classic one to be remembered. One where the winners had to endure long hours, extreme heat, changing locations, and the stifling loud music of a really bad house band. Overcoming all those issues and six other dangerous teams of pig passers were Master John Coscia and his teammate, longtime NPPL fan Taddy McKell, who came out on top and won a grand trophy and a big wad... of cash!

The "Invitational" was the first tournament of its kind using a 'best-ball' format between two teammates with the ultimate goal to get to 200 points instead of one-hundred. (For more information about the format and tournament click here!) Each "Master" was allowed to invite one guest to be his teammate and seven teams made up the playing field.

There had to be a change of location for the playoffs since the regular season didn't finish until closing time at the bar, to which the playoff rounds moved to Mark Rago's house after the bar's closing. The change of location was a blessing for John and Taddy, a fourth seed going into the playoffs, who then overcame a grueling rubber match in a best of seven over Autograph Mike and his wife Amanda, the two-seed in the finals. In the first round of the playoffs, Cosh and McKell beat number-one seed Mark Rago and some guy named Jeff. "Some guy named Jeff" was just that, given he was a replacement for Rago's original teammate Leanna Darr who was too drunk to carry on after her third game in the regular season. Needless to say, Rago's new teammate passed better pigs than Darr did, and in turn rolled their way to a number one seed after the regular season ended. Strange how things happen.

The other team to make the playoffs as the number three-seed, but lose to Mike and Amanda Aring, was the team of Chicago-based master Luke Derango and Jay Rosenberg. Luke and Jay finished slightly better than Luke's brother Johnny who just missed the playoffs with Bob Bacon with a 8-10 record for the regular season. Ashley Hurd and Maria Skelly finished at 7-11, and of course "the landlord of last place", Gary Williams, finished right where you would expect...last place with his teammate Jeff Schwartz. An article about the landlord will hopefully be happening very soon we all hope. Word has it that news outlets all over the world have been clamoring for an interview with this uncontested Loser. The standings ended up as follows:

FINAL REGULAR SEASON STANDINGS

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