2019 Holy City Cup - Tournament Recap
Oct. 1, 2019 • Andrew Maron
This was the 7th Holy City Cup in the club’s history and turned out to be the biggest tournament to date. With two fields to play on, eight teams were present including Greenville, Knoxville, two teams from Augusta, two teams from Charleston, a college team in UNC-Chapel Hill, and the newly reformed Charlotte club. There were also some players from Orlando, Tampa, Columbus and Raleigh to help some teams out with numbers. The tournament also had two USGAA registered referees, Scott Cooper from Tampa and Keith Knot from Akron.
Tournament Play
The day turned out to be a beautiful clear sunny day. From 10:30 am to 5:30 pm, the fields saw great competitive hurling. The team of the day was Knoxville. They beat Charleston for the inaugural South East Division Championship and went on to have an undefeated day winning their first ever Holy City Cup. Over the last few years, Knoxville has seen tremendous growth in numbers and in skill. Their hard work was on display the entire day. Greenville had a strong day as they went undefeated in pool play, but came up short in the final. Charleston split their team up into a Gold team and a White team. The Gold team was comprised of the players who represented the club at the USGAA Nationals. They fell just short against a tough and determined Knoxville team but recouped and showed their strength against UNC and Charlotte. The White team was comprised of anyone who did not make the trip to Nationals. They fell against Greenville in their first game where they were unable to overcome an early deficit due to some quick early goals by Greenville. They recovered against the Augusta Blue team but then fell in a close match against the Augusta Red team. The after party was out on the patio at Tommy Condon’s. There was no shortage of craic on this evening as hurlers from around the southeast shared their war stories from the pitch. This is the greatest attribute to our game. Everyone experienced a grueling day of hard fought competition, physicality, and sweat. No matter what happened earlier, we all get together and enjoy each other’s company. We leave everything on the field. Including grudges. On the pitch, we are adversaries but off it, we are a family.
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