SCORESHEET
The 2011 NAHA Nationals are official and 5 Ntl. Champions have been crowned.
Before I get to the events, I have to start off by thanking everyone that was involved. If I do forget someone, I do apologize and thank you more than you can imagine, but I believe I have everyone accounted for.
First off, thanks to all the competitors for putting on a great show. We had competitors from all strength & sports avenues, highland games, strongman, powerlifting, mma and more. Thanks to my beautiful wife for everything she did throughout the day, the days leading up to the event and just dealing with me in general. To my business partner, Richard "Vince" Vincent. You did a great job with everything and especially the sponsors. To Vince's wife Sandy and daughter Nicole, they did an awesome job running the raffle tables enduring the chilly weather. To Steve for the use of his canopy for the raffle. To my judges, what an amazing job they did, Vince and Eric Todd, you guys kept things running very smoothly. To my loaders and spotters, Chad, Bill, Chris, Aaron, Jeff and Tonya, you all did an incredible job and worked your butts off all day. To Jesse Jobe for letting me use some of his equipment. To the American Legion,SAL & Auxiliary, for the use of their facility, providing concessions and everything else they did. To the City of Papillion, for bringing in the cones and bleachers. To the Papillion Times, Omaha World Herald, City of Bellevue and PapioVision for media coverage.
And finally, to all the sponsors that helped out with being the title sponsor, buying an event, raffle items or goody bag items, you all did an incredible job. I cannot thank all of you enough as none of this could have happened without you.
And the most important thing of all was that through everyones help, we raised $1,500 for Camp CoHoLo. We are very happy about this, as this is one of our main purposes of putting on the show. Due to the low turnout of spectators, because of the weather, this was amazing as everyone really stepped up(spectators, competitors, judges and spotters) and made the Camp CoHoLo donation a nice one.
Now on to the contest. I thought all the divisions were very competitive all day. It was a very chilly, damp day which did not stop the athletes from putting on some great performances.
Angela O'Connor(NE) won our Womens Ntl. title. This was Angela's first highlander competition and she showed that she has some skills.
The Masters division saw 2009 & 2010 NAHA Champion John O'Brien(MO) claim his third title in as many years. He was followed by Larry Kaiser(NE), who took 2nd, with Dan Bunch(NE) getting 3rd. Rounding out the division was longtime competitorLance Foster(KS).
The Lightweight division was one of the closest, with 1st thru 4th separated by 2pts. In the end, Tim Pinkerton(NE) won the title by virtue of a tiebreaker. Shaun Satterfield(NE) claimed 2nd followed by Corey Kenkel(IA) in 3rd. Rounding out the division was Troy Goetsch(NE).
The Middleweight division was won by Andrew Durniat(OH).Andrew had a solid day holding off local competitor Mac Capello(NE) who took 2nd, in 3rd was Glenn Melnick of Nebraska. Rounding out the division was Kyle Nordstrom(IA).
The Heavyweight division saw quite the battle with the outcome being decided by a three-way tiebreaker. Thom Van Vleck(MO), Chris Anderson(MO) and Jesse Jobe(IA) we are tied at the end of the day, so we had to go to countbacks. With Thom claiming 3 event wins, he took the HW Ntl. title. Chris took 2nd with Jesse Jobe finishing 3rd. Jesse came in a 253lbs. and was by far our lightest HW competitor.
There were many performances that were impressive all day and I would once again like to thank everyone that was involved. Competitors, sponsor and helpers, you were all great.
Once again, thanks to everyone involved with this event and we hope to see you next year.