Carson wins IRT 23rd Annual Turkey Shoot in Garden City, Kanasa

Rocky Carson won the 23rd Annual Turkey Shoot tournament on the International Racquetball Tour (IRT) in Garden City, Kansas on Sunday, as he beat Alvaro Beltran in five games, 11-7, 10-12, 11-4, 1-11, 11-6, to become the fourth different tournament winner in as many IRT events this season.

It's the first time that four consecutive IRT event have had different winners since the 2011-12 when Carson, Ben Croft, Jose Rojas and Kane Waselenchuk won consecutive events.

The win is Carson's 18th career tournament victory and solidifies him at the top of the IRT rankings. He became the #1 player in the latest rankings with the absence of Kane Waselenchuk from last weekend's Red Swain Shootout. Waselenchuk also wasn't in Garden City.

Game one was close all the way, but after Beltran closed to within one at 8-7, Carson got the serve back and won it with three consecutive drive jam serves to the left side that caused Beltran to turn around to try and return them. One of them went for an ace, which was Carson's third ace of the game.

Beltran stormed out to an 8-0 lead in game two and looked a lock to tie the match at 1-1. However, Carson then scored ten straight points to get a game point, but he didn't finish it. Beltran then scored four consecutive points to win the game, finishing it with a backhand down the line.

Momentum swung back to Carson in game three, as he won relatively comfortably, 11-4. However, Beltran did hold Carson at 9 for a total of eighteen rallies before Carson scored two straight points to finish the game with the winning point a drive ace serve to the right side.

So it looked like Carson was going to win in four, but racquetball's a funny little game and again momentum swung the other way, as Beltran cruised to an 11-1 win in only 19 rallies.

Afterwards, Carson said "I didn't play bad" in game four, but Beltran "caught fire." So, Carson just had to hang in there and try to wait it out, as "it's hard to sustain that" level of play.

In game five, they were back and forth early, and tied at 4-4. Then Carson pulled ahead. It went 5-4, 6-4, 7-4, and Beltran called a time-out. On the next rally, Beltran wanted a hinder, but none was called and Carson hit a forehand pinch to make it 8-4.

Carson made it 10-4 with another ace driven to the right side. Carson had nine aces in the match. Beltran stopped Carson's first two match points, and scored a couple points of his own, but on the third one Carson drove to the left side and then made a backhand cross court to the right side to win the game and match.

Carson said "it was a lot of pressure" playing against Beltran, and he "couldn't give [Beltran] too many to shoot."

Carson also said it "feels good" to win, because "last week was a tough loss," referring to his loss in three straight games against Daniel De La Rosa.

The next IRT event is the New Jersey Open December 12-15.

2013 23rd Turkey Shoot
Garden City, Kansas

Final

Rocky Carson d. Alvaro Beltran, 11-7, 10-12, 11-4, 1-11, 11-6

Follow the bouncing ball….