Beautiful Day, Sticky Gound

What a turn around from just 3 days before. The weather took a turn. A glorious blue-skied January day met today's roster. Penalty for wonderful sky was fart-grass, that mucky ground that isn't quite muddy enough to get pant-cuffs but does prove each foot step flatulent. 

Bevington once again opened with skill. While the remainder of the field became hung on the center wicket he powered to the turn and back and with a two wicket advantage over Roarke, his nearest opponent, was quickly poison. His skill would not hold for an instant though. On his first shot as stinger he ran the length of the field to within 6 inches of the turning wicket pair. This unfortunate positioning would be his undoing.  Next at bat was Roarke, able to pass and center wicket and roquet Justin, he was goaded into going for the kill. Bevington was just too inviting and two shots later was sent through the turning wicket pair without another chance for a kill. 

This kill was to be the end of Roarke's flourish for this round. His slow play through the remainder of the course left Scott nipping at his heels. After setting up for a definite poison shot, Roarke was soon reminded that in croquet nothing is certain. Scott came roaring out of the final single wicket, using his next shot to not only knock Roarke out of position but to place him on a silver platter as the first kill. 

Scott would then put a stop to Justin's turn of fortune.

After a long hang-up at the center wicket, Justin has found his stroke again and battled quickly ahead, reaching the final single wicket. His 20 foot buffer wasn't to be enough to keep him alive as Scoot laid out a dead-on kill.

Scott's opening red-dog at-bat were followed by an 8 round  game of cat and mouse game as MacDonald traversed the remaining quarter of the field. Opting to play for position over aggression, Scott allowed MacDonald to get poison at which point aggression became the only option. Leap frogging towards the field boundaries, the two traded misses. McDonald had his opponent dead-to-rights on the fourth exchange only to have the ground give a freak bounce, skipping the killing shot inches over its target. Scott got the better end of the field on his next shot, taking MacDonald and the day on this 2nd game of the Winter 2008 season.

Surprisingly enough this round didn't involve a single rules argument, this brings to doubt the validity of the game.