BY JONATHAN BYM || Staff Writer
The Senior Games of the Pines was well represented at the N.C. Senior Games recently, with more than 35 participants competing in sports and craft competitions. And the large number produced large results, with more than 60 medals awarded.
The top three in each classification advanced to the National Senior Games, which will be in July in Pittsburgh.
The racquet sport brought in a large number of the medalists at the state level, led by pickleball with 24 total awarded.
First-place finishes in pickleball included: Rosemary Anderson and Debbie Meagher in the women’s doubles. Anderson and John Bullins won the division in mixed doubles play. Wanda Bergan came in first in her division in women’s singles. John Durkee and Chester Paff won the men’s doubles pickleball title.
Ted Fujimoto won the men’s singles title. Chester Paff claimed first in his division of men’s singles, and he teamed up with John Durkee in the men’s doubles for another gold medal.
Nan Pieroni won women’s doubles with Yoshiko Poindexter and also won mixed doubles with Dan Pieroni. Poindexter also won women’s singles.
Second-place finishes in pickleball included: Sonia Wriglesworth and Wanda Bergan taking silver in their division in women’s doubles. Bergan also finished second in mixed doubles with Timothy Williams.
Robert Donaldson finished second in men’s singles.
Third-place finishers included: Bill Bergan in his division in men’s singles. Anderson finished third in the women’s singles division. Mary Altmeyer and Debra Carter took third in their division in women’s doubles.
Wriglesworth and Paff finished third in mixed doubles.
Douglas Ditter finished fourth in his division in men’s singles
In other racquet sports, Wanda Bergan also finished first in women’s table tennis singles. Paff finished third in men’s singles in table tennis, and claimed second in the mixed doubles in table tennis with Lisa Pate.
Ralph Guillory won first place in men’s table tennis singles.
Red Sheridan won singles tennis and took third in men’s doubles with Bob Lough.
On the track, James Hansz and Douglas Geertgens tallied the gold individual medals.
Hansz claimed seven medalist finishes in the track and field, including a second-place finish in the 1,500-meter run. He also finished fifth in the discus and 100-meter dash. Hansz finished sixth in the shot put, 400-meter dash and 50-meter dash, and seventh place in the 200-meter dash.
Geertgens brought home the second most medals with five top three finishes in the track and field events. He took first in the running long jump with a mark of 11 feet, 11 inches. Second-place finishes came from the standing long jump of 6 feet, 7 inches; 50-meter dash at 7.71 seconds; and the 200-meter dash in a time of 36.87 seconds. A time of 16.83 seconds in the 100 meters earned him third place.
June Davidson brought home two gold medals with a first in basketball shooting, with seven shots made, and she was also part of the first-place winning line dance team.
Susan Fink, Jean Hill, Carrie Johnson, Rebecca Lapping, Rosa Recio, Cynthia Shear and Adelita Yong were also members of the first-place line dance team.
Wiley Ritter finished first in bocce and second in shuffleboard. Susan Stahl finished first in bocce.
Tim Hawkes was on the first-place winning softball team.
Maxine Cheek finished second in shuffleboard. Sylvia Woodard finished second in shuffleboard.
Jack Lund finished second in golf. Keith Mabe finished second in cornhole.
Belinda Pope finished third in bocce.
Contact Jonathan Bym at (910) 693-2470 or jonathan@thepilot.com.
