August 24, 2001 World Horseshoe Champion

Two Canadians Crowned World Champions:
Sylvianne Moisan (women) and Howard Weitzel (Senior Men)


The 83rd Annual World Horseshoe Pitching Tournament, hosted by the Hibbing Horseshoe Club and the local Chamber of Commerce, was held from July 30 through August 11 at the Hibbing Memorial Building, Hibbing, Minnesota. A total of 1045 pitchers competed including 25 from Canada (see the list of entries from our Country).

World Champions were crowned in 7 divisions. Here they are:
Boys: Lance Albrecht, Rochester, MN, 6-1, 74.38
Girls: Shalee Sebastian, Shinglehouse, PA 5-0, 60.29
Senior Ladies: Jan Turnquist, Duluth, MN, 5-1, 67.33
Elder: Ed Arionus, Seguin, TX, 11-1, 81.75
Senior Men: Howard Weitzel, N Battleford, SK, 5-1, 62.15
Women: Sylvianne Moisan, Chertsey PQ 14-1 83.64
Men: Alan Francis, Defiance, OH 15-0 84.67

The year 2001 was an excellent one for Canada as two of our representatives were crowned World champions, a first since 1965 when Elmer Hohl and Ross Stevenson were crowned in the men's and junior boys' divisions. Besides our two champions (Sylvianne Moisan and Howard Weitzel), we also had two runners-up: 12-year-old Drew Becker (Junior Boys) and Kelly Mallette (Junior Girls). Both lost their last game which was deciding the champion in both cases.

Kitchener's Drew Becker, who was making his first appearance at the World Tournament, won the Juniors A division in the preliminaries with a 68.93% average, which made him top seed for the championships. He started these with an 83.3% game (opening game), then defeated defending champion Chase Battle. A few great comebacks in the following rounds kept him undefeated until the next-to-last round when our young tournament leader lost to Tyler Elfrink 25-40. This set the stage for the last-round game against Lance Albrecht. Both having lost one game, the winner of that game was to become World champion. Drew (64.3) finally lost 31-40 to Albrecht (73.2) in 56 shoes. A remarkable performance for Drew.

Kelly Mallette, Sandy Janssens' niece, qualified with 47.0% (seed #2) and remained undefeated in the championships until her last-round game against defending champion Shalee Sebastian. The champion kept her title by virtue of a 40-20 win in 44 shoes. Percentages were 61.4 to 47.7.

Lucille Leis qualified for the Senior Ladies finals as seed #6 with 57.7%, but played very well in the championship rounds. She defeated Edi Holland 40-29 with a 70.8% in the opening round and ended with an 80.0% (high game of the group) against Edith McKinney. Her only losses were to Rivers Prewette 27-40 (round 2) and to the champion Jan Turnquist 23-41 (round 3). Lucille finished in third place in the Senior Ladies division with a 3-2 record and 67.3% average.

Two Canadians qualified for the Senior Men's division finals. Larry Markle took 12th with 3 wins and 8 losses and a 59.6% average. Canadian champion Howard Weitzel became the 8th Canadian to win a World Title and the first to do so in the Senior division. Howard's losses were to John Brown 16-44 (round 2) and to Bob Lautenschleger 29-40 (last round). This loss created a tie for first between Howard and former champion John Brown. Howard Weitzel (65.5) won the playoff game 41-26 in 58 shoes, while Brown averaged 56.9%. Nicknamed "comeback kid", Howard won 5 very close games in the tournament and threw the most shoes pitched with 722, averaging an overall 64.54%.

No Canadians qualified in the Elder men's 30' division. Ed Arionus won the title by defeating defending champion Bob Logan twice. First to pull into a tie (last round) with an 83.8% game in a 40-21 win. Then in the playoff where he won 41-16 and averaged 86.2%.

Tom Gallina was the only Canadian to qualify for the Men's championship round. He has the distinction of having scored the most points on Alan Francis, the eventual champion, when Tom lost 29-41 in 72 shoes in the opening round. Tom finished 14th with a 3-12 win-loss record and a 66.20% average. For the first time since 1990, three men averaged over 80% overall. In fact, the top 4 men achieved their best average ever at the World tournament. Brian Simmons was awesome, missing a total of 19 shoes in his first 5 games for a 91.59% average. Brian could hardly throw better and naturally went down after that. Meanwhile, Alan Francis' average went up, Alan finishing with 5 games over 90% in his last 7, the other two being 89.1% and 85.7%! Of course, both Brian and Alan stayed undefeated until their last-round encounter, which Alan won 40-15 in 80 shoes. He missed 7 shoes for 91.3 while Brian, who lost at least 4 ringers, averaged 81.3 in that game. Longest game was 114 shoes between Francis (91.2) and Lipovsky who scored 16 points despite an 84.2% game.

In the women's division, four Canadians qualified for the championship rounds. Sylvianne Moisan retained her title earned in 2000 with again a 14-1 win-loss record and an 83.64% average. She clinched first place during her last round game when Amy Francis lost 26-41 to Sue Snyder. A couple of innings later, Sylvianne won her last game 40-11 with an 86.8% against Judy Curtiss. One of Sylvianne's toughest wins was round 13 against Amy Hall. Trailing all game, she came back to pull a 41-38 victory. A loss would have put her in a tie with Amy Francis with two rounds to go. Sylvianne's title in 2001 was "impressive" due to the fact she overcame two surgeries related to Crohn's Disease and didn't start playing until mid-June. Her high game was 90.0% out of 90 shoes in a 42-23 win over Sue Snyder (82.2%), round #11. Sylvianne threw 895 ringers out of 1070 shoes pitched, once again recording the greatest number of shoes pitched in the tournament. Sandy McLachlin-Janssens, who was making a comeback this year, was the first and only other Canadian woman to ever win the World women's title (back in 1987). Incidently, Sandy, who was also Junior Girls World Champion in 1986 was inducted into the NHPA Hall of Fame this year at Hibbing. Here are our three other Canadians in that division: Angeline Moisan (13th with 65.95%), Sandy Janssens (15th with 66.71%) and Elda Hastings (16th with 53.80%).

Other interesting links about the World Tournament and our Canadians:


Congratulations!


(by Andre Leclerc)


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