Brooke takes on Nationals and brings home another MEDAL!

This past Thursday Brooke and I hopped on a plane headed Southwest to Phoenix, AZ as she earned herself 2 entries into this year's USA Pickleball Biofreeze USA Pickleball National Championships in Mesa, AZ.  This was our first time visiting Arizona, and we were excited to see some new scenery and hopefully some warmer weather than what November was giving us in PA.  Unfortunately, it wasn't super-hot, but comfortable shorts and t-shirt weather the day we arrived.  That soon changed to cooler nights in the 40's and day temps only reaching high 60's to low 70's the rest of the weekend. It turned into pants and hoodie weather the day after we arrived!...Go figure.

With Friday off, we had planned to make the trek to the Grand Canyon, but a 4hr one-way drive, made us think twice as we would have had to leave early in the dark and return late in the evening, and Brooke was playing Mixed Double's first thing in the morning on Saturday.  Instead, we headed over to the Arizona Athletic Grounds, a mega facility that was hosting this year's USA Pickleball National Championship, to watch a few friends play and maybe scope out some of the competition. Brooke's Mixed Doubles partner, Mike Hamberg was playing Men's Doubles with Armando Ocando.  We followed them around the morning, cheering them on and got to watch them bring home some hardware!  Congrats to Mike and Armando!

Saturday morning rolled around, and Brooke and Mike were slated to start their first match at 9:30am. They were entered into the 5.0, 30-39 yr old bracket, as originally Brooke was signed up to play with Armando.  He had some last-minute plans and Mike stepped up to play with Brooke, but they had to play down an age level because that was where Brooke and Armando had to play.  The competition was fierce, and they won their first set and was up 10-8 in the second set, but the other team came back and won 10-12.  This was a back-and-forth game and what you expect to see at a national level. In the end, they came up short and lost by so little in the third set, knocking them into the Bronze medal bracket.  This team later went on to win gold, so the outcome could have been very different had a point or two gone their way.  It still was an exciting game to watch and definitely a nailbiter.  In this Bronze bracket, once you lose, you are out, and they played only a single game to 15.  Mike and Brooke easily won their second game and then got placed into the semi-final.  They needed to win one more match and they would have been battling for bronze but again came up short by so little.  It was super fun to watch these two play the "kids" and what an awesome job they did!

Sunday, Brooke was set to start at 8:00am with a starting temp at 48 degrees! This spectator sure had on the layers, and the only thing going for Brooke was the very light 3 mph winds.  I'd have to say that's very untypical for Women's Singles day, as usually she's having to battle 10-20mph winds in times like these.  Brooke was playing the 5.0 and signed up for 40-49 age but they combined all ages, and it ended up being 19-49 and guess who was the oldest in the list again?  It sure didn't matter to Brooke as she came out firing in her first set and made a quick run. Her competition made some changes and ended up winning the first set.  In the second Brooke was down 2-6 and she called a time out.  Her and I had a quick chat and came up a plan she executed perfectly.  She ended up winning that second set 11-7.  The third set Brooke continued executing the plan with perfectly placed shots and won 11-0, moving her into the next round. Brooke played her second match against a much younger lady, that was just an all around great player.  She was quick and placed very well-made shots where she wanted to and no matter what Brooke tried, just couldn't beat the youth and speed.  This loss placed Brooke into the Bronze bracket and she came planning to win.  Her next opponent had no answer to Brooke's shot placement. Brooke came out with a win, which moved her into the Bronze medal match. She now had to face the first opponent she played, and the woman than beat Brooke was playing for gold.  Brooke continued with a well-executed plan and won the BRONZE in two sets! 

Overall, Brooke won BRONZE from all women 19-49 but physically brought home a SILVER in her age bracket 40-49!  Brooke will only ever claim what she won, but she earned that SILVER as far as I'm concerned and not to mention as far as the USA Pickleball Nationals is concerned!  So what, that the woman that beat her was 12 years younger!

Of course, she had to grab a bronze off the table to pose on the podium… lol

It was an awesome day, and I was happy and so proud of her to medal at Nationals. She came home with a SILVER, even though she'll tell you she won BRONZE!

Brooke's medal match is uploaded and can be viewed in her video library or click this link -> https://www.brookepeterspickleball.com/copy-of-students