2023

Playoff Recap

Thank you for another fun year in the Blumpkin League! We are ringing in the new year with a league champion. The 2023 championship saw the #2 seed Brad (Red Zone (Taylor’s Version)) Riley defeat #5 seed Jon (Team Shields) Shields, 192.34 -128.42. 

To date, this is the highest total points scored by a single team in the Championship game. Brad surpassed the former record of 188.34 points scored by Lada in 2018. Even with this feat, he had left 12.2 additional points on the bench. 

After starting 0-2, Brad dominated, winning 12 of his next 14 games. A component of his success was the week six trade with his championship opponent, Jon. This brought over De’Von Achane and Tank Dell, two essential pieces in his weekly starting lineup. 

This is Brad’s second Blumpkin, and he joins a club of four other league members (Lada, Matt Lilly, Mike Depol, and James) who have won the league at least twice.

Jon Shields is Consistency. In his first two seasons in the league, Jon finished in fourth place both times and has the league's highest overall win percentage. This season, Jon struggled with his matchups. While averaging 122.41 points per game, which was good enough for second in the league, he could only secure the 5th playoff seed. However, Jon broke the just-out-of-the-money barrier by winning two playoff games and defeated the top seed, yours truly, in the process. Big congrats to Jon, who is becoming a force in the league. 

In our third-place matchup, Matt (Hungry Hungry Hunter Henry) Lilly beat James (That Johnson) DelMasto, 119.48-114.34. I finished the regular season #1 with a personal best, 11-3 record, averaging 131.35 points per game, which was (just shy of) 9 points more than the second highest points scorer. My opponent, James’, was coming off a championship year. In fact, over the last five seasons, James has made the playoffs four times and won the Blumpkin twice. Congrats on another great season, brah!

Our league is a lot of fun for me, and I appreciate you all being a part of it and making it great. Congrats again, Brad!