Wickliffe, OH - This small,provincial town about 20 miles east of Cleveland was the site of a major sporting event this past weekend that has unfortunately, been under the radar of most of the major media and sports outlets. Yet close to 10,000 spectators were on hand over the course of the weekend to watch some of the top international teams compete at the game of Bocce in a tournament hosted by and held at the Wickliffe Italian-American Club. The 28th Annual Pat O'Brien Chevrolet Cleveland Challenge Cup of Bocce brought out 96 men's teams and 10 women's teams (in a separate division) to compete for over $16,000 in prize money. While many of the teams were from the Ohio and Pennsylvania areas – hotbeds of this sport that continues to grow in popularity – several teams came down from the Toronto area, Rochester, NY, Florida, and even Colorado.

The defending champions – Vandra Brothers # 1 – who won the "triple crown" of bocce last year (Wickliffe, Mayfield, and Rome, NY tournaments), surprisingly got knocked off fairly early on by another group of Mayfield players (Marshall Ford Superstore). That opened things up for another local team – Rampe Le Palle (consisting of players from Mayfield and Euclid) to make a run against two of the tournaments' perennial powerhouse teams: 6-time winners, Rainbow Creek (Toronto) and 3 time winners, J.J.'s Litehouse (Sharon, Pa.).

In the semi-final game, J.J''s jumped out to a 6-0 lead, but Rampe came storming back to tie the game at 6. They then traded points until J.J.'s jumped back into a 12-9 lead. Rampe then looked like they had 2 points locked up, which would have brought them back to 11-12, when Dan Borchert from J.J.'s hit the pallino away from Rampe's balls to the other side of the court to nail 2 points for J.J.'s and the victory.

In the championship game, Rainbow Creek # 24 (Toronto) jumped out to a 2-0 lead. J.J.'s tied the score with some amazing shots, banking their balls off both the side and back walls to squeeze their balls in for points. Rainbow Creek however, continued to add 1 point at a time for the next several frames, building up a 9-2 lead. J.J.'s finally broke through with 2 points to make it 9-4, then dodged a bullet when it looked like Rainbow Creek had a chance to score 3, but couldn't roll in, settling for only one point and making the score 10-4. J.J.'s again rallied, picking up 2 points by hitting the pallino down to the back wall where it had balls waiting. Rainbow Creek would not be denied, however, making some unbelievable shots of incredible skill – first clearing out all of J.J.'s balls, then after rolling one ball short of a point, another Rainbow Creek player was able to bump that ball up and get his own ball in for a point as well, giving them 4 points and an insurmountable 15-6 lead. It was too much for J.J.'s to overcome, Rainbow Creek scoring the final point and winning by a score of 16-6.

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