NOVI, MICHIGAN – LEG returned to Novi for the first time since week 4 (June 15), and the players were quickly reminded of how difficult an environment it is compared to The Friendly Confines of Beverly Hills (aka, Bushie’s house). Bushie has the Augusta National of backyards – beautiful flowers, luscious green grass and plants, asymmetrical stone and brick walkways, and fencing to keep the riffraff out. All of this contributes to a comfortable setting and pleasing depth perception, increasing accuracy. Meanwhile, Novi is completely exposed to the elements (wind, heat, dog shit, flying beer cans – more on that later) and that was evident all night. Throw accuracy was way down this week, with KP leading the way at 52% (he’s the league leader and is typically in the mid-60s%) and the remaining 6 players ranged from 23% – 37%. Gross points per round were also way down, with the weekly leader coming in at 3.0 (KP) compared to week 6 with 4 players at 3.3 points per round and higher. Despite some key statistics being “down” the competitiveness was still off the charts.

Game of the Night was extremely tough to choose this week, with 6 of the 12 games decided by 3 points or less. However, Game 12 was the choice, featuring Paul and Bushie vs. Coach Mike and JV. Things looked ugly after round 1 when JV outscored Paul 5-2 to take a 3-0 lead, and Coach Mike piled on to make it 6-0 with a 4-1 advantage over Bushie. But the battle was just beginning…Bushie outscored Coach Mike by 8 points over the next two rounds to close the gap to 10-8, followed by a 5-0 run by JV and Coach Mike to extend the lead to 15-8. In the late stages of the game, it was 15-12 JV and Coach Mike. JV had 2 bags on the board and had missed another throw. On his last toss, he knocked 2 bags in for cornholes while the third bag came to rest on the board. A yuuuuge 7 gross points on his way to outscoring Paul by 4 to up the lead to 19-12. Bushie responded again, outscoring Coach Mike the next 2 rounds, 8-0, and just like that the game was tied, 20-20. Paul and JV faced off, pressure mounting. Paul delivered a clutch cornhole, his first of the match, and two additional points claiming a 5-1 gross points advantage over JV with only 1 toss left for JV. He needed a cornhole and also had to knock one of Paul’s bags off the board to keep the game alive. His final throw was a cornhole, but it wasn’t enough as Paul held a 5-4 advantage, good for a 21-20 victory. An impressive comeback, with Bushie leading the way at 3.5 gross points per round and 6 total cornholes.

About those flying beer cans…take a wild guess who was behind this stunt? If you guessed JV, you guessed right. In Game 5 JV and Paul matched up against Bushie and Joe. This was a great game, and a candidate for Game of the Night, but that’s not why we are talking about it (Bushie and Joe won 21-19, by the way). JV was off to a rough start, hitting only 2 of his first 12 throws. After his 12th throw capped an 0-4 round, he turned to walk into the street while yelling, “Son of a BITCH!”. KP was innocently sitting in a chair between the 2 trees updating the scores (or lack of) from the round when all the sudden JV yells, “Oh no! KP!” Before KP could look up, WHAM! Smoked in the head by a beer can and beer pours all over the computer. What the fuck happened, you ask? Good goddamn question. Not only did JV walk into the street yelling, upset at his terrible performance, but he also blindly threw his beer into the air using a Kareem Sky Hook and the fucker traveled 20 yards, over a tree, split two trees and hit me in the goddamn head before dumping on the computer. “KP, you’re making this up,” you say? No. I’m not. This guy went 2 for fucking 12 looking at his target from 27 feet away. But he can blindly land a beer on my head with a sky hook? That’s strike 2 JV.

Perhaps the most entertaining moment of the night was in Game 4, when Coach Mike and Mario defeated Joe and KP, 21-18. Another great game, which included Coach Mike going HAM with 12 total cornholes. Joe and Coach Mike had a nice Italian head-to-head going on throughout the game, but it started right from the opening toss. In round 1 Joe had one cornhole only to be answered by a cornhole from Coach Mike. In round 2 Coach Mike narrowly missed another cornhole, but had a beautiful backstop on the hole with his bag partially hanging in the hole. On his next toss he used that backstop to make a cornhole and the impact with the hanging bag caused the that bag to also fall into the hole. A great play resulting in 2 cornholes, causing Coach Mike to exclaim, “Yeah baby! I just need a little cushion before I put it in the hole”. Challenge accepted. Joe promptly responded on his very next throw with a thunderous cornhole. He jarred this thing on the fly. It was opposite ends of the Italian hole penetration spectrum. The OG, doing it with finesse and a hint of romanticism, while the young Joe V.’s cornhole is like an airplane. It gives girls orgasms.

Other highlights of the night include:

• Bushie going an impressive 6-2 on the night, including the second best toss accuracy (37%) and second best KPM (6.0). Bushie rose to #6 in the power rankings after sitting at #11 last week;
• Mario was 2-5 on the night and experimented with a second version of his toss. The difficult conditions seemed to bother him a bit, but I think his lack of focus due to taking booty calls all night contributed to most of his struggles. Despite a poor record, Mario had losses of 21-18, 21-19, and 21-18. He very easily could’ve been 5-2. He was also part of an impressive 21-3 win over Bushie and Coach Mike;
• JV struggled to a 3-4 record, but did have the most cornholes per game (4.0) and added 4 foot snags to his season-leading total of 18;
• Paul was a respectable 3-3, trying to get the train back on the tracks after a few bad weeks in a row. Paul had a toss accuracy (31%) and gross points per game (1.9) consistent with Coach Mike, which is a good measuring stick. The numbers might not seem impressive, but the whole group was down this week. Paul’s scoring balance was much better this week, compared to previous weeks where he was cornhole or bust;
• Joe had some loud moments, including a very impressive 21-19 win over Paul and JV. But he also had some big losses that resulted in an overall record of 1-4. Joe has still only played 11 games on the year, so he’s searching for consistency with that toss;
• Coach Mike recorded the most cornholes in one game this week (a ridiculous 12), and also was the leader in total cornholes (33). Coach was 5-4 for the night, keeping him in the middle of the standings;
• KP was the weekly leader in toss accuracy (52%), cornholes per round (0.46), gross points per game (3.0), high round (10 gross points) and KPM (10.7). Most impressively, though, he recorded a week-high foot snags with 5. However, his cornhole rate is still too low and he dropped his first 2 games of the night before stringing together 4 consecutive wins to finish the night at 4-2