Fifty cornhole teams played the tournament in Sunken Gardens in Atascadero

ATASCADERO — The Annual Showdown Cornhole Tournament was back for a very successful seventh year. Hosted by the Knights of Columbus and Atascadero City, the tournament brought in 50 teams from all over California to raise money for local charities while they also competed to be top dogs and get a little bit of the pot for themselves on Saturday, Oct. 14.

“It’s been a great little family event. And it truly is a family event,” said Knights of Columbus Officer and Event Coordinator Mike LoPicolo. “I mean, we have some advanced players, we have a lot of social players, we have families come. It’s fun. It’s always a good time of year to play cornhole.” 

One thing that stood out this year is that due to having fewer players than years before, the Cornhole Tournament dropped down from a two-day event to just taking place on Saturday. This year, 50 teams signed up to play for money and bragging rights.

“This is our smallest year, and yet we still have 100 players,” added LoPicolo. “You know 100 people out here throwing cornhole bags is pretty good.” 

Proceeds from the tournament, mixed with money raised by the North County Annual Showdown Auction, came to a total of approximately $3,400. Approximately $2,800 of that will go to the North County Adaptive Sports and Recreation Program (NCASRP), a North County program for youth and adults.

“They do a heck of a job,” LoPicolo said of NCASRP. “All adult volunteers, volunteers from Cal Poly. It’s a great program for our community. Knights of Columbus and the City just love to support them.”  

Boy Scout Troop #51 was also there to help and will receive approximately $550 of the money raised at the event.

This year’s advanced Showdown winners were Thorne Squad (Hunter Thorne/Mike Thorne) from Moorpark in first place, Team Bro (Tony Holguin/Joe Holguin) from Santa Barbara in second, Shuck Gang (Demetri Brown/Taylor Brard) from Atascadero in third, and D’s Nuts (Kenny Rice/Brandon Kent) from Nipomo in fourth.

Social Showdown winners were the Santa Barbara Baggers (Jose Aguilar/George Holguin) from Santa Barbara in first, Reapers (Diego Hernandez/Scott Chapman) from Carpenteria in second, Beers & Bags (John Barrios/Brandon Barrios) from Paso Robles in third, and Atascornderos (Ryan Betz/Bob Pinkin) from Atascadero in fourth.

Another upgrade to this year’s Showdown was a whole new scoring system, which was provided by the local cornhole club, Bear Country Cornhole.   

“They’re doing all the brackets and all the scorekeeping for me. That’s a monster job, and they use the Scoreholio app,” stated LoPicolo.

He added that the use of the app makes it so players can see their current rank on their phones while playing. There were also TV monitors that posted the brackets for everyone to see publicly.

Not only does the Showdown feature all the cornhole you could want, but it also has games for kids like water balloon tosses and a Jenga Challenge, which youngster Sierra Betz came out the champion of. 

“It was very hard, but I had the encouragement to do it, and I really liked it,” said Betz of winning the Jenga Challenge. “It was really exciting, and I was really happy [to win].”

This year’s Showdown sponsors were: The City of Atascadero, The Atascadero Chamber of Commerce, Five Star Rain Gutters, North Coast Engineering, Bear Country Cornhole, Carquest Auto Parts, Filipponi & Thompson Drilling, Forager Distillery, Atascadero Kiwanis, Lave Print Media, Miner’s, Powersource Chiropractic, Prawn Engraving and Design, State Farm Insurance, Sara Hays, and Wild Fields Brewery.

Next year, the Annual Showdown Cornhole Tournament will be back in September, with the exact date still to be decided.

Feature Image: The 7th Annual Showdown Cornhole Tournament raised close to $3,400 for local charity. Photo by Christianna Marks