Who: Dave and Danielle, your hosts with the mosts What: The Quidditch Hour on WSRN When: Monday, 18 March 2019, 9 am Where: Anywhere your radio is :) Warnings: Quidditch! OOC Note: For those with characters interested in Quidditch, please keep an eye on the official tournament bracket! I'll keep updating it with results as the tournament goes on. ~Calli
DAVE: Hey there, sports fans! Welcome to Quidditch Hour on your local WSRN member station. As always, we are sponsored by Boone's Best Broom Polish: "When your bristles need a boost, reach for Boone's." I'm Dave Nguyen, your favorite statistician and all-around Quidditch nerd.
DANIELLE: And I'm Danielle Beauregard, your intrepid newshound and match analyst. Our first topic of the day, of course, is the weekend's two quarter-final matches, the first of the 2019 NAQL tournament. On Saturday we saw the matchup between that undefeated Roanoke team and the seriously struggling Sweetwater, and that went about as expected.
DAVE: That's for sure, Danielle. Snitchgrab was mercifully quick, at just over two hours, but it was almost excruciating to watch the Riptide pummel the All-Stars for that hundred and thirty-one minutes. At a final score of 680 to 60, it was an absolute slaughter on all fronts, and I'm sure Sweetwater fans, if there were any left in the stands after the sixty-minute mark when the score stood at 250 to 0, were thanking Roanoke seeker Aleks Ivanov for ending their misery.
DANIELLE: I know I was. As usual, the 'Tide's front line were dominant all match. Chasers Pierce, Holloway and Nguyen were in their usual form, with hardly a dropped quaffle or a missed pass between them. Always a pleasure to watch those three young players fly.
DAVE: They were mesmerizing as usual, with some spectacular shots, especially that frankly ridiculous over-the-shoulder toss from Kiki Pierce in the twenty-fifth minute. That one's going in the highlight reels. And we have to mention Roanoke's brick wall of a keeper, Jupiter Mills, who shut out the All-Stars in the first hour and maybe would have made it a perfect game if she hadn't been taken out by a Sweetwater bludger to the face early in the second hour.
DANIELLE: That bludger, sent by veteran beater and captain John "Tex" Dawson, was probably the best play of the game from the poor All-Stars, who just were not up to scratch against this Roanoke team once again. So that's the end of the season for Sweetwater, who'll limp home with their tails between their legs, and last year's champions the Roanoke Riptide will advance to the semi-finals. Any word on whether Sweetwater coach Diego Jones has received that pink slip yet?
DAVE: No word, but we'll keep you informed, listeners. Now, I am itching to talk about our other game of the weekend, that long-anticipated grudge match between league rivals Manitowish and Moose Jaw. Was that a game or was that a game, Danielle?
DANIELLE: One of the most exciting matches we've seen this year, Dave. These are two teams who are evenly matched in almost every way, who have been neck-and-neck all season chasing Championship dreams. And they did not disappoint yesterday. It's absolutely a shame that this was a quarter-final match and not the final. There was some incredible Quidditch out there yesterday. If you love the game and you missed that one, please do yourself a favor and find a way to listen to it.
DAVE: We knew this one was going to be close, right? Last week when we did our tournament preview show, I wouldn't even hypothetically bet on it because I thought it would come down to a hair. And sure enough, this match was so tight that the point differential before the snitch was never higher than thirty. It was anyone's game all the way through, and that's always exciting.
DANIELLE: Right. Now, last week we predicted this match would be a classic seekers' duel between wily Quebecoise golden girl Claire Bonneville for the Marauders and high-energy Australian wunderkind Jonny Sherwood for the Meteorites. It was the fan-favorite seekers' first meeting in the air, and I don't think anyone was able to take their eyes off those two for all four hours and change of the game. That first half hour when you could tell the seekers were just taking stock of each other, like they were on a first date --
DAVE: Yes! That's exactly what I thought. Were they actually flirting with each other? Was it just me or was that sexual tension palpable to anyone else?
DANIELLE: This is a family show, so I won't speculate on where they both ended up after the game, is all I'll say. Anyway, both seekers put up a fight all match long, and that final chase for the snitchgrab was one of the most exciting things I think I've ever seen. Bonneville was pulling out all her tricks, including that corkscrew feint that I keep saying is going to have her name on it someday, and Sherwood was right on her tail every step of the way, all while dodging every bludger from Benji and Kari Norman. And that final dive, shoulder to shoulder… wow. I honestly didn't know who'd caught it until Jonny came up for his victory lap and the Meteorites went wild.
DAVE: Absolutely thrilling to watch, the entire thing. And with a final score of 460 to 330, one of the closest and most exciting matches on quaffles we've seen this whole season, with masterful work by both teams on both offense and defense. It's almost a shame these two teams faced one another in the quarter-final round and we won't be able to see a rematch in the final.
DANIELLE: So the Marauders are knocked out early and the fifth-seeded Meteorites advance to the semi-finals, where they'll meet the reigning champs from Roanoke in another two weeks. We'll look at that pairing on a later show. For now, we want to update you, our loyal listeners, on the definitive rosters for next week's quarter-final matchups. The big news out of Pacific Territory is the long-awaited return of Hideko Nakamura, the Kappas' veteran chaser and captain, after a month-long bout of vanishing sickness. His healers have cleared him to return to the field just in time for the tournament, which is definitely a stroke of luck for Kirkland.
DAVE: I'm sure they feel much more confident headed into that all-important match against Los Tigres with Nakamura back on his broom. The Vegas bookmakers have shifted the odds slightly in the wake of that news, but I'm still thinking we'll see Tlaquepaque advance, maybe all the way to the finals. The other big roster news is that Fitchburg beater Arlo Sienkiewicz has returned from his three-game suspension, and after deliberation the NAQL has ruled that he will be eligible to take the field in time for Saturday's match against Haileybury after weeks of doubt on that front. Does that tip the scales at all in the Finches' favor, Danielle?
DANIELLE: I don't know that it will, but considering the defensive power Sienkiewicz and his partner Abraham Kebede have brought in the past, it'll make it a more interesting match against the Hammers' aggressive bludger game, for sure.
DAVE: Fair enough. And with that, we'll hop across the pond to take a look at last week's international box scores with our London correspondent, Darius Hooper…