1st Bryan Benwitz finished in first place for the third week in a row with a pristine 4-0 +503 record, ensuring a repeat performance of last year's club championship. He started off with a big 461-331 win over Helen Flores, finding MATELOTE, SIGNIORY, and the phony-but-believable DISHERS* for his bingos. Three more bingos, this time all legit, led Bryan to a no-doubt-about-it 505-300 win against Richard Lauder; Richard got down PURITIES, but Bryan's MANTUAS, SATURATE, and SORICINE were just too mucuh. Bryan played another phony in round three, leading one to speculate whether his nickname should change from Bingowitz to Phonywitz, but the result was still a win as he easily took down Thomas Reinke, 539-391, playing SIERRAN, LEMONISH, and MATTIEST* (MATIEST is good). In round four, Bryan finally ran out of gas, but he still managed to clinch the perfect record by beating Andy Bohnsack 375-356.

2nd Thomas Reinke grabbed second place by going 3-1 with a smaller than usual point spread of +97. Game one saw Thomas get brotherly vengeance against Charles Reinke, 422-388, an act which is basically equivalent to punching a mirror. Thomas had ASSUMED and WINNERS (appropriate word) vs. Charles' BOEHMITE and OVERWET. Thomas then picked up a low-scoring 348-311 win versus Lynda Finn, finding RENOWNS to Lynda's DECANTED. Facing off against Bryan Benwitz turned out to be a significant impediment to winning Scrabble games (as it so often is), as Thomas suffered his only loss, 391-539, but redemption was soon achieved when Thomas finished his night with a 450-276 win against Richard Lauder.

3rd Andy Bohnsack crept into third place, going 3-2 +375. A two-on-one game in round one was a mixed bag, with a 466-315 win against Sara McLaughlin being offset by a 334-375 loss to Lynda Finn. Lynda managed to get that win despite not getting down a bingo; Andy had one bingo of CRIMPLED for all the good that did him. A strong 458-411 win over Charles Reinke followed, with Andy finding SNORTER and MILTIER to Charles' INDIGENE, ROUSTED, and LATICES (three cheers for high-probability bingos). The highlight of Andy's evening was a 524-287 win against Helen Flores, but that triumph was short lived as Andy's lofty dreams of a first-place finished were flattened by a 356-375 loss to Bryan Benwitz in the final round.  Bingo finds of ELECTRIC and NEONATAL reportedly did little to ease the pain.

We welcomed new player Melody Brown into our ranks, and while she didn't win a game (a tragically common fate for first-time clubgoers), she did well and we hope she returns!