24 Teams Battle for “Tournament of Champions” Crown
The Guns & Hoses annual T.O.C. took place on Nov. 8th and this final tournament marked the end of the 2009 season series. The grand finale was held right where the 2009 season began, at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley. The Fall weather Gods smiled upon the fields and set the stage with picture perfect softball weather. The TOC celebrations were in full swing with pumping tunes from “No Limit DJ Productions”, the always-friendly Guns & Hoses “Hotties” and the magic hands of “Christine” the G & H Massage therapist. So, although there was lots of fun to be had in between games, it was “all business” on the fields, with tight scores, impressive comebacks and surprising upsets.  The competition was solid, with all the participating teams gunning for TOC glory and the chance to earn double G & H points in the tight points chase for the overall team season standings. 

All teams played 3 round-robin games and were then seeded according to their record in pool play, for the single elimination bracket portion of the tourney. Once the bracket games kicked off, it was a “win and advance” or “lose, pack your bags, and get ready for next season” scenario. To add a little mystery and excitement to the mix, after each teams last round-robin game was completed, the team captain had to select a random envelope to see where that team ended up on the bracket. All the #1seeds, #2 seeds and so on were still separated from each other on the bracket, but the placement was indeed random. With this format a team could potentially start out on a tough or easy half of the bracket. It would all fall into place after the last hour of round-robin games. But, prior to the brackets, the round robin battles resulted in the following records: