2008 Roofball World Championships
On 02-24-2008
Champion is Daniel “Danno” O'Reilly
There is no time trial champion for this event yet.
O'Reilly Scores a Perfect 6
Posted: 02-25-2008
Dan O'Reilly savors a sip of champagne from the Susan J. Willis Trophy
Some in sports believe the first championship is always the sweetest, and ones that come after don’t measure up. Some say each new title is better than the last.
Dan O'Reilly should know – he’s now won six.
Daniel “Danno” O'Reilly won the
2008 Roofball World Championships with a 54-43 victory over
Matthew Azar in the Championship Game. The win gave O’Reilly his third world title to go with three U.S. Open titles. His total of six career championships is the most ever won by a Roofball player, two clear of
Casey Campbell’s second-best mark of four titles.
En route to the championship, O’Reilly also laid claim to another of Roofball’s most significant records by posting a score of 70 in the Semifinals. The mark tied O’Reilly with Casey Campbell and
Adam Willis for the highest single-game score of all time.
O’Reilly averaged a whopping 46.0 points per game, the third-highest tournament mark in the history of the game.
The size of the field of competitors made O’Reilly’s triumph all the more impressive. For the first time in Roofball history, a full field of 24 players battled for the title.
The tournament was filmed by TVC-TV and will air on public access cable stations beginning in March.
The 2nd Place finish was a career best for Matt Azar, playing in just his third career tournament. Azar advanced to the Championship Game by beating out Adam Willis in the Trophy Round. Willis finished in 3rd Place.
Elyse Dodsen followed up an impressive debut in the 2007 U.S. Open with another Women’s Championship-winning performance. Her 1st round score of 30 narrowly bested newcomer Melissa Davis’s 29. Dodsen won her 1st round game for the second straight tournament, but her score of 20 in the 2nd round wasn’t enough to move Dodsen on to the Semifinals.
In the Semifinals, Adam Willis posted a score of 60, the 10th best single-game score in Roofball history. Willis did so by scoring a ping and a catch in all 10 innings, the first Roofball player ever to do so and only the second player to score 10 marks in a single game (Campbell, Semifinals, 2005 World Championships).
NOTES: O’Reilly threw six pings, three arounds and had 10 catches during his 70-point game. An injured ankle kept
Elizabeth Willis out of the competition, making this tournament the first she missed since the 1999 World Championships.
Robert Saliski made the most acrobatic play of the day, making a catch after jumping onto the car and then completing a backward roll off of the car before sticking the landing.
Robert “Buddy” Emmons III, 2007 RFA Cup and U.S. Open champion, was eliminated following the 2nd round after posting a career-low score of eight. O’Reilly, Azar and Campbell combined for a score of 161 points in their Semifinals game, a new Roofball record. Azar set a Roofball record with 42 catches during the tournament.
Brent Thompson threw Roofball’s 13th all-time 15-point throw in the 5th inning of his 1st round game.
