Monday, January 18, 2010

Big Cat Individual Final Standings

The final day of the Big Cat Individual Challenge was one that gave players a chance to decide their own fate in the final standings.  Players were grouped based on their position on the leaderboard.  The top 10 competitors going into the event performed the workout in pairs with an opportunity to leapfrog their opponent in the final rankings.

Going into the event, sophomore Dom Robusto was holding on to first place by 5 points over both sophomore Nick Pappas and junior Kevin Jackson.  However, on the off day before the final event, Robusto tweaked his hamstring while running a sprint in practice so he was questionable going into the event.

The drama ensued as last year's individual champion Will Keiser posted the best time in the event giving him a legitimate chance to repeat if the top 3 were to slip up in the WOD.  Pappas then ended the chance of the first repeat champion in recorded Big Cat history* by overtaking Keiser's top time by several seconds, putting him in a great position to be the new Big Cat champion.

All this time, Robusto was still a question mark and finally was allowed to compete in the event, but only  under the close watch of strength and conditioning coach Nick Vera to be sure that his form was not impaired by his hamstring injury.  If Vera were to see any break in form, Robusto would be shut down for the event and take a DNF, eliminating his chances to claim the crown.

So in the final heat of the WOD, Robusto and Jackson went head to head to decide this year's champion with Pappas watching closely to see if his time would hold up and give him the win.  The two athlete's put on an incredible display of strength and athleticism, Robusto actually performed almost every burpee on one leg to avoid re-injuring his hamstring.  The heat was neck and neck nearly the entire workout, but it was Robusto who not only won the matchup, but also finished with the top time overcoming his handicap of competing mostly on one leg.

The overall effort of every competitor throughout the competition was astounding.  We now look forward to this week's beginning of the Team Big Cat Challenge.  The top 6 finishers were awarded with the opportunity to be captain's for the team challenge, however, Robusto chose not to participate in the team challenge to give his hamstring an opportunity to heal and allowed senior Andrew Lawson the chance to be a captain since he was the next highest seeded finisher.  Later tonight, the team events will be posted so captains will have the opportunity set up for the draft.

Here are the final standing from the Individual Big Cat Challenge:


Name Total
Robusto 34
Pappas 40
Jackson 46
Keiser 50
Binder 53
Klimesh 59
Lawson 71
Paillet 75
Donnan 81
Murphy 84
Hunter 86
Bay 89
Bentz 90
Woodruff 92
Spriggs 94
Knowlton 96
Barron 97
Ryan 99
Haaf 99
Hall 104
Rockafellow 111
Panozzo 113
Lucero 124
Fink 131
Felix 136
Bogese 139
Grimshaw 143
Heckerl 145
Jones 145
Webb 148
Warren 151
Clements 162
Frasier 163
Calbick 168
Burden 187
Stanton 188
Foster 193
Francke 194
Robertson 206

0 comments:

Post a Comment