Eleven

Group 1 · Ponte Vedra YMCA · Wednesday

Eleven

Ethan Lee went 5-1 on 59, in the top group, against the three men closest to him in the table. He and James Sparkman were partners twice and won both, 11–6 and 11–7. They were opponents four times and Lee took three of them — 11–5, 11–7 and 11–6, with Sparkman's side taking the third game 11–4. Lee finished 59 of 66. Sparkman went 3-3 on 51. Eight points between their nights, on top of the three that were already there, and the closest table in the building is suddenly not close: 353 to 342, with 66 points left to play for.

The arithmetic of the last week is simple and unkind. To win the league, Sparkman has to outscore Lee by twelve in the same room, on the same six games, with two of them as partners. It has been done this season — Lee did eight of it on Wednesday — but not by the man who needs to do it. In three weeks in the league, Lee has posted 65, 57 and 59: 181 of a possible 198, and the seat he inherited in fourth place is a week from a gold medal.

Behind the two leaders, Jeremy McCann went 3-3 on 52 and slipped from third to fourth, and Shayne Wright went 1-5 on 40 — his one win the closer, 11–6 with Lee — and dropped from fourth to ninth. Two weeks ago Wright was second. The top group has been the same four men for three straight weeks, and it took a toll on the two who weren't leading it.

One 5–1 and one 1–5 on every court · a season first

Five by five

Twenty-five court-nights this season, and never before had every court produced a 5-1. On Wednesday and Thursday all five did, and all five produced a 1-5 to go with it. The 5-1s were Lee in Group 1, Zachary Gragg in Group 2, Nick Mayville in Group 3, Jeff Morano in Group 4 and Luis Burgos in Group 5 — 59, 60, 62, 62 and 61. Four nights of 60 or better, the most in a week since week 2, and not one of them above 62. The best night of the week was the lowest weekly best of the season. This was a week of very good nights rather than one great one.

The other two men on every court went 3-3. Ten 3-3s, five 5-1s, five 1-5s — the first week of the season with no other record on the sheet.

Gragg's was the one this desk has been waiting for. A week ago the Dispatch noted he had climbed from sixteenth to fifth without once posting better than a 4-2. On Wednesday he went 5-1 on 60 — 11–4, 11–6, 11–6, 11–7, 11–9, the one loss a 5–11 alongside Craig — and climbed two more, onto the podium at third. Sixteenth after week 1. Third after week 6, with the medals decided in a room he has now earned his way into. Matt Malleo went 3-3 on 55 in the same group and rose two to sixth; Justin Craig, sixth a week ago, went 1-5 on 41 and fell to eleventh, out of the ten.

Mayville's was the biggest climb in the league. Sunday morning at Group 3 — the first court finished all week, three days before the original lock — he went 5-1 on 62 with the week's first 11–10 in it, alongside Byron over Brown and Venoy in the second game. Back to back 5-1s now, 58 and 62, ten wins in twelve games, and it moved him six places, from eleventh to fifth. A week ago he was eleventh on a tiebreak, level on points with tenth. Brown went 3-3 on 54 and climbed to eighth; Byron 3-3 on 54 and held tenth. Chris Venoy had the week's most respectable 1-5: 52 points, his five losses by a combined fourteen — 10–11, 9–11, 8–11, 7–11, 7–11 — which is a bad record and a decent night at the same time.

Burgos went 5-1 on 61 from eighteenth place — 11–3, 11–4, 11–5, 11–7 and the week's other 11–10, with Sunkara over Figueroa and Vandenburg in the fourth game — and climbed four to fourteenth. It is the second week running that the best night in Group 5 came from the bottom of the table.

Group 4 · Thursday night, on an extension

Nobody keeps last week, part two

Seven days ago this desk described Jeff Morano's 37-point night as the week's other collapse. He answered with 62 of 66. Five straight wins to open — 11–3 and 11–7 with Brady, 11–8 and 11–7 with Brock, 11–5 with Alvarez — before the closer went 7–11. It is the joint-best night of the week, it moved him four places to twelfth, and it came on the one court that needed extra time: Group 4 played Thursday night after the week was reopened and extended 48 hours, and had all six scores in by 9:30. Oscar Alvarez went 1-5 on 43 and dropped four to eighteenth.

The other man this desk wrote off a week ago, Michael Vandenburg, went from 32 points to 54 — 3-3 in Group 5, up one place and out of last. Javier Figueroa, who had the best night in the league from twentieth a week ago, went 3-3 on 51 and stayed seventeenth. Sunil Sunkara went 1-5 on 36 and takes twentieth. In two weeks the bottom of this table has belonged to three different men.

After Week 6

The top ten

Standings are ordered by percentage of available points won. Arrows mark upward movement only. Row one is a single seat — Jonathan Yin's weeks 1–3 and Ethan Lee's weeks 4–6, scored together — and the live standings page now records the handoff. Joshua Brady and Grant Brock used their substitutions this week; the substitute's points are credited to them and those nights are not eligible for the honor roll. Justin Craig is eleventh at 78.3%. The full table of all twenty players is live here.