By Breven Honda
The Mesquite Senior Games spring season is almost complete as the bulk of the events took place in March.
Sandy Tudor said people have liked the different events despite Mother Nature getting in the way during the final day of pickleball action. 
“They’ve gone great, other than the weather we had (on March 15),” said Tudor, the Mesquite Senior Games interim president. “Our pickleball tournament was scheduled for men on Monday, mixed doubles on Tuesday and women on Wednesday. But we knew quite a while ago that Wednesday was going to be a bad weather day.
“So, we actually sent notification to everyone and postponed Wednesday until Thursday, knowing that we would lose some players. Actually, we only lost four, which I thought was pretty good.”
In total, 13 of the 15 events have already taken place with the softball events slated to begin April 1-2 for ages 50-64 and April 4-5 for those older than 65. The bocce event on April 17-20 concludes the spring schedule.
Tudor, who coordinates the softball events, said one of the challenges of scheduling the tournament has been due to an inconsistent holiday.
“For the last three years, we have had to make substantial adjustment to our softball schedule because of Easter,” Tudor said. “Our softball event has always been the first two weekends in April. Well, the last three years, Easter has been in the middle of that. These are women between 50 and 75 years old who have children and grandchildren and they don’t want to miss Easter with them.”
In total, there are 33 softball teams competing with 16 squads in the younger age group and 17 in the older age group. In addition, there are seven, 70-and-over teams and four teams in the 75-and-older age bracket.
One of the similarities between the softball event and the bocce event is that both are qualifier events for the Nevada State Games, giving the opportunity for teams to compete for something beyond the Mesquite Senior Games.
Tudor said she can’t wait for bocce in the middle of April.
“We are very excited about our bocce tournament. The two that we’ve had so far have gone really well,” Tudor said.
During the month of March, the Mesquite Senior Games kicked things off with the Shotgun Sports and Target Pistol events the first weekend. Between the two events, there were a little more than 70 participants taking part in the trap, sporting clay and skeet events in the shotgun sports and center fire and rim fire events in target pistol.
The following weekend, the bowling event took place as the doubles event sold out and the singles event was nearly full.
This year’s bowling event is the first time the Mesquite Senior Games returned to its pre-COVID-19 schedule with doubles in the morning and singles in the afternoon.
As much as people enjoyed both the bowling event as well the shotgun sports and target pistol events, challenges have emerged when it comes to planning for 2024 in its own ways.
“We had three people drop out of the singles part way through the games because they were tired, and they were some of our older competitors,” Tudor said of the bowling event. “We need to relook at that in the future because six games for some of these people to bowl in a day is a lot.
“We did find out that Ducks Unlimited has a big shotgun shoot the first weekend in March and it’s a three-day event. We’re going to look at possibly changing the dates of ours for next year, so we do not compete with them. Three or four of the guys said ‘Wow, you could’ve had another 50 shooters.’”
One of the things Tudor and her board members wanted to ensure for this year’s games is if there was enough help throughout the events.
Beth Caplinger, who is on the Mesquite Senior Games Board as the volunteer coordinator, has dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’ when it comes to the help for each event.
“The thing is, it looks like we need a lot of volunteers sometimes until you look at it,” Tudor said. “Bowling is a perfect example. We need two people there to check everybody in. But, once they check them in, there is nothing else for them to do. So, those same two people became the lane angels, or the score runners or whatever. So, (Beth) has had everything covered that we need to cover so far this year.”
The volunteer success has led to the joy from the participants during each of the events, especially those competing for the first time since the pandemic.
“They are so happy to be able to participate in the games again,” Tudor said. “That was a hard, difficult time for a lot of people because people are basically social animals and to not have the socialization was really difficult. People are just happy to be out and about again.
