The 2008 Brick Tamland Celebrity Classic took place on Saturday, March 29 at Trinity High School in St. Louis. 23 players from 7 states took part in one of the ASA's largest tournaments in recent years. Along with some of the ASA's top players, the tournament attracted 4 newcomers to the game from St. Louis, playing their first competitive matches.

The group stage saw some close matches and some surprising results. Group A pitted two of the ASA's top players in Florida's Alex Batacchi and St. Louis' John Sarra. Group B saw the dominant return of Maple City's Jon Schultz. St. Louis' Jim Monken won Group C. St. Louis' Jeff Drake bested Queen City's Steve Laskey to win Group D. In a surprising Group E result, newcomer and 11-year-old Damon Gonzalez finished second to St. Louis' Tim Boone. And in the tournaments' 'group of death', the SLSL's Mitch Morice outlasted Lone Star's Calum Keenan along with St. Louis' Matt Morice and Darren Koffman.

The Wes Mantooth bracket saw even more surprises as St. Louis newcomer and 10-year-old Nolan Drake survived Maple City's Brian Bostleman in a quarter-final shootout and then fellow St. Louis newcomer Jon Freebersyser topped Oklahoma's Scott Brister. In the final, it took a shootout for St. Louis' Darren Koffman to beat young Freebersyser to win his unprecedented third Mantooth brick in a row.

Some of the top players in the country squared off in the championship bracket. Highlights from the Round of 16 included Steve Laskey shutting out Tim Boone and Mitch Morice just edging out young Damon Gonzalez. The quarter-fianls saw tournament favorites Alex Batacchi, Steve Laskey, Jon Schultz, and John Sarra all advance to the semi-finals. An extremely intense semi-final match saw Batacchi score a late goal to complete a comeback win over Laskey and Schultz seemed to have no problem with Sarra as he rolled in to the final. After a chess-like regulation, Schultz was finally able to solve Batacchi and score 2 goals in the 5 minute overtime period to capture his second Brick Tamland Celebrity Classic in two years.

At the end of the day it was great tournament, participated by even better people. The SLSL would like to thank all our friends who traveled in and look forward to seeing them again next year to do it all again.

All tournament results can be found HERE