By: Breven Honda
As the calendar flips from March to April, the scheduled mid-way point of the Spring season arrives.
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
Overall, Mesquite President Sandy Tudor says everything has been going well, including the leadership with the Board of Directors.
“They’ve been great,” Tudor said of her fellow board members. “Everybody’s been mostly at every event and helping with setup and tear down and everything that needs to be done. With the (box) truck, there’s not as much as it used to be, but there’s still stuff that has to happen every event.
“It’s difficult having so many games in such a short period of time. We lose snowbirds come the end of April, and much before that, it’s not warm enough to be doing a lot of these, so we’ve got kind of a narrow window to get a lot of stuff done.”
Even from a volunteer standpoint, Beth Caplinger has been getting a steady stream of help for each event.
“Volunteers are awesome,” Tudor said. “(Board Member) Jim Armstrong was talking to some people and said, ‘You got to come by’. They came by the bowling alley, signed up as volunteers, stayed and worked and came back the next day.
“Then we picked up two more volunteers, just from somebody who knew somebody and said, ‘Hey, you ought to get involved.’ And they have been. So, we’re picking up volunteers again, which is good, because we can never have too many.”
The first event to begin the month of April is shotgun sports and target pistol, which is being led by Armstrong.
Tudor said the only challenge for the shooting events is the location, not taking place in Mesquite, nor the state of Nevada.
“I think we’re in pretty good shape,” she said. “We’ve got some pretty good raffle prizes. A lot of them are shooting-related raffle prizes. Jim Armstrong has done a great job in getting those lined up.
“We really wish, though, that we had a local venue. It’s kind of tough when the Mesquite Senior Games have to go to Hurricane (in Utah) to play an event.”
After the shotgun and target pistol events, the women’s softball tournament gets underway. The tournaments for the 50-, 55- and 60-year-old age brackets get underway April 5-6 followed by the 65, 70 and 75-year-old brackets on April 8-9.
Tudor, who is the event director for softball, said they are 32 softball teams ready to compete, as of March 22.
“Actually, it’s a little more than we had before,” Tudor said about the number of teams on March 22. “Although, I could use one more in the 50s and one more in the 55s I think to make it just an easier bracket for me. But if I don’t get them, I’ll figure it out.
“I hear from the ball players all the time. In fact, a lot of them are down in Bullhead City right now playing in a tournament and wondering if they can come up here right afterwards. I said, ‘Sure, but I got nothing for you to do for 10 days. But come on up.’”
During the softball event, the second fitness hike takes place on April 5, led by Clint Bostwick.
The season continues with cornhole, bocce and tennis. All three events have registration deadlines about one week before the start of the event.
This year’s cornhole event is taking place at a new venue, now in the VIP Parking lot behind the Eureka Casino.
There are about 25 participants in cornhole. For bocce, it is close to a full event in both the two-person and four-person events from April 14-17 at Sun City. Four-person bocce is slated for April 14-15 and two-person is scheduled for April 16-17.
The competition in bocce is expected to be fun, especially because the competitors know each other.
“It’s kind of funny. These people all play against each other in league, so then they just come play with us,” Tudor said.
One week after bocce, the Spring season wraps up with tennis from April 21-25. That event is being led by Duane Catania and those with any registration questions can ask board member Marge Mongolo.
“As we’re getting closer to the to the late events, we still need some cornhole participants. We still need tennis participants,” Tudor said. “Our goal generally is to close registration one week before the event, and that gives us time to do brackets and all the other stuff that needs to be done.”
