Le Blanc tallied the most points during the Game 1 of Round 3 match-ups where she and Kim Peterson outscored Melody Matson and Janna Young, 21-11.
The Game 2 of that round however, turned awesome as it capped out at 25-24 with Melody and Janna inching over Nicole and Kim.
Le Blanc’s point was the highest through out the entire two-person event that started with four pools in the first round and ended with two opposing pairs in the final round.
“It sounds complicated, but once you see it, it’s easy to understand!” says Laurie Peterka event organizers and president of NMIVA.
The Queen of the Beach format had the individuals play for their own best score, Peterka said. This means, one is individually playing under two-person rules by switching partners every match.
This format, she said works best in multiples of eight so that the elimination always produces a number that can be divided into 2-v-2.
For her part, Mili Saiki, NMIVA board member and co-organizer of the event said the format surprises a lot of players.
“Because you never know how it is going to turn out. You can miss advancing to the next round by one single point, which means that you have to focus on defense as much as offense,” she said.
Melody Matson who scored 63 points won the second place, Janna Young, 57 points and settled for third place and Kim Peterson 52 points for fourth place.
“It was fun to make it to the final four. No one was as surprised as me, but I just really felt like I was on my game. I just rode the wave,” said Peterson also an NMIVA board member.
Former CNMI national player Melissa Hallaby said “it was really interesting that none of the previous Queens or finalists were in the final four. It just shows how diverse this format is and how it lets those who are most flexible at moving with different partners can rise to the top.”
The number of participants this year, Peterka said doubled in compared to the first two years.
Last Saturday’s game started with 16 individual total slots for Round One.
These 16-players were divided by ranking into 4-pools of four players. The top 8 finishers (calculated by most points earned in the round) advanced to Round Two. In Round Two (the semi-finals) there were 2-pools of 4-players, with the top 4-players advancing to Round Three – the finals. The player that emerged from Round Three with the most points was the Queen of the Beach!
Peterka added that from the first year, the event has been geared towards being a fundraiser for a special needs group outside of volleyball.
The players in this year’s event, she added voted to donate proceeds to Kaye Christian for the therapeutic garden at the Commonwealth Health Center.
