By Breven Honda
The ongoing planning of the fall slate of events continued as the Mesquite Senior Games gets set for five sports beginning in October.
Verla Ahrens (left) and Rosie Daniele took home the bronze medal recently in the 90-and-up division of bocce ball at the Mesquite Senior Games. Beth Caplinger photo
Bocce kicks off the month before men’s softball, pickleball, an 18-hole golf tournament and the year-end holiday bowling event.
Mesquite Senior Games President Sandy Tudor, who is the event director for the men’s softball event, said teams are starting to sign up as registration begins to open for each event.
“We’ve got registration open for softball and I’ve got like 11 teams signed up already,” Tudor said on July 25. “We’re getting ready to open the registration for the fall events. We’ll open that probably the beginning of August.”
For men’s softball, the hotel registration deadline is set for Sept. 3 at either the Virgin River or CasaBlanca hotels.
To register an entire team, it is $425 while an individual player can sign up for $5.
The schedule of the brackets, based on age range, is also designed as an opportunity to prepare for the Huntsman World Senior Games.
“Our tournament is called the Huntsman tune up. We look at when the games are being played in St. George, and we have our event before it,” Tudor said. “So, like the 65s, I think, play here on Thursday, Friday and then play in St George on Monday, Tuesday. So, it gives them a couple days to play here and then a day off, or maybe not. We always align ours to right before the Huntsman. The Huntsman publishes their dates years in advance, so it’s pretty easy for us to do the same.”
As a result, Tudor and the Mesquite Senior Games expect teams to come from throughout the United States, in addition to the locals from Mesquite.
For the other four events – bocce, pickleball, golf and bowling – the Mesquite Senior Games is putting the final touches before registration opens.
The primary thing is where each event will take place.
“We’ve made sure we had all of the venues set up,” Tudor said. “There’s a form that we have to fill out for the city to register for their locations and their venues, and then get with the golf course.
“We’re having our golf event at Coyote Willows, so we had to get with them and make sure that everybody was on board for what we’re doing, although that one is not until the end of October.”
As the Mesquite Senior Games prepares for the fall season, they continued their summer work outside of their sports planning.
They welcomed two new board members. Dodie Melendez, who has worked for the City of Mesquite as an accountant, will serve as treasurer and take over the daily bookkeeping and accounting needs for the Mesquite Senior Games.
In addition, Tudor and the Mesquite Senior Games welcomed Linda Vandervolgen. Vandervolgen will be eased into a specific role on the board. However, she will start by helping fellow board member Vicki Fikani with the medals that are given after each event.
“We have to keep track of the medals that we have, the ones that we’re going to give out and then get ordered,” Tudor said. “It’s not so much in the fall, because we’ve only got the (five) events. But in the spring, there’s a lot that goes into keeping the medals straight, knowing how many to have at the event, and making sure we have enough on hand.”
Tudor added it is not only keeping account of the participation medals, but also the performance medals in bocce and cornhole.
“We have two specialty medals. One for cornhole if you get what’s called a four-bagger, if you get all four bags in on one turn,” Tudor said. “Then on bocce, which we do have in the fall, there’s one for, it’s called a casino, and that’s if you end up with all four of your balls closest to the white ball then you get four points. So, we give a specialty medal for that as well.”
This is a perfect time for Vandervolgen and Melendez to learn about what goes into planning for a Mesquite Senior Games season on a smaller note, before the longer, spring slate.
