The Battle of Cap Au Gris

On a Sunny day in September our real estate endeavors pulled us northwest of the St. Louis Metropolitan area to the town of Troy, Missouri. The only “public” courts we could locate were those of Troy Buchanan High School. Many school courts are locked these days because we are in the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic. We decided to take the chance anyway and head out to Troy to see if we could get on the courts.

Troy is the county seat of Lincoln County and was founded in 1819 shortly after the completion of Fort Cap Au Gris built for the war of 1812. The Battle of the Sinkhole was fought nearby in 1815. Troy’s most famous resident is the professional wrestler Harley Race who was frequently on the card at Wrestling at the Chase Park Plaza.

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We arrived at the courts and immediately noticed a sign that said play was for “District Patrons” only. Clearly we were patronizing the District’s courts so we felt that included us. The courts are in fantastic shape and have thoughtful seating areas built in for viewing of matches. Even more amazing is these courts are painted PURPLE! The fencing displayed a giant Trojan, the high school mascot.

We began warming up on the courts and immediately noticed the net was slightly high and the purple surface was strangely grippy and slick at the same time. Clearly somebody has created a home court surface advantage for their high school matches here.

Scott won the toss and began serving and promptly lost the first 3 points. It was looking like his extended streak of defeats would continue against the mighty Bulgarian. Somehow Scott clawed back into the game and ended up holding hitting a sliding low ball to go up 1-0. Stan held easily and then Scott reeled off 3 games in a row to go up 4-1 and then 5-2. Stan as always was not going anywhere and fought his way back to 5-5 and then 6-6. A Seven Point tiebreaker decided the set and Scott dominated 7-3. At this point the set had taken so long we decided to finish the match by playing at 10 point tiebreaker for the second set and another one for the third if necessary.

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After Scott stormed out to a 4-1 lead Stan got dialed in and won it 10-7 hitting a lob over Scott’s head to set up a final tiebreaker to decide the match. Scott again established a 4-1 lead and soon enough we had a real battle for the match with both players having match points. Ultimately Scott got an 11-10 lead and Stan finally cracked serving up a double fault and handing Scott his first victory in several years. The Battle of Cap Au Gris 2020 belongs to Mr. Stinson.

We did not have time to find food after this match but if we did we would have experienced Troy’s version of an Iowa Hamburger at Krumbly Burger!