The 2014 Scrabble tournament saw 101 players compete March 29 and 30 at Dan-ville Area Community College. “I think things went very well generally,” said tournament director Marty Gabriel. “I received many nice comments from players about the quality of the event. Several play-ers who were attending for the first time promised to return!” Players came from Illinois, Indiana, Ten-nessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin. Fifty-one players competed on Saturday, with 47 playing in TWL divisions and four playing in the CSW division. Fifty players competed Sunday, with 42 playing in the TWL divisions, 4 playing in the CSW divi-sion and four playing in the Casual Players Tournament. The tournament benefits DACC’s Reader’s Route adult literacy program. Two players provided tournament assis-tance. Stacy Phillips of Tennessee served as an apprentice director. “She was very helpful!” Gabriel said. Della Lutz of Illinois provided an easy-reference binder that contained all of the NASPA rules. “It helped the director function very ef-ficiently,” Gabriel said.” Both women went on to become cash prize winners. Phillips finished second in Di-vision 5 on Sunday. Lutz finished second in Division 5 on Saturday and first in Division 5 on Sunday. Also, a research study involving two DePaul grad students was conducted at the event. As in previous years, the food and re-freshments served at the tournament were a hit. “Barbecue sandwiches were a new item in the hospitality room each day of the event this year. They seemed to be very popular,” Gabriel said.

DACC 2014 tourney ‘went well’ with 101 players

Players await tournament director Marty Gabriel’s announcement of the day’s divisional cash winners and the non-cash winners with high win and high loss scores. The non-cash winners took a trip to the prize table to select merchandi-

ise collected by Scott Heatherton, director of the Reader’s Route. The merchan-dise came from local shops, businesses and private donors. The top two finish-ers in the Casual Play Tournament also were awarded prizes from the table.

A non-cash winner happily shows off his selec-tion from the prize table, a designer Snuggie.

Scott Hawkins won the raffle prize, a Kindle e-reader donated by DACC trustee Dave Harby.