First Response

Episode one: “First Response.” The mean streets of Dragonfly Blues were soaked, cold, and buzzing—24 intrepid Midnight Riders circled like suspects in an alleyway lineup under the glint of rain-soaked lamplight. ☔🥏 With a charged sky (44.8°F, stiff wind, sheets of water), every throw left footprints in the mud and questions in the air. Before night’s end, a bogey-free performance and a clinching birdie on the 18th would crack the case wide open on disc golf’s nastiest contest of will.

Division highlights started in the heart of the drama: Thomas Sautel in MA1, dancing his discs past every hazard and never dropping a bogey—not once, not ever—lifting his score to –2 and his victory to solo status. 🏆🔎 This gumshoe’s notebook shows Chris Fox, Zack White, and Clayton Strayer all circling at –1, with Strayer peaking after 16 before bogeying 18—just as the city’s shadows closed in. Fox, meanwhile, posted a personal best on this rain-soaked layout, while Strayer’s gritty comeback from a double-bogey on hole 1 played like a man clearing his name in a city that loves to point fingers. This whole operation reeks of a setup, if you ask me.

MA2’s script was all double-crosses and shifting alliances: Eric Pearson and Aaron Prestgard tangled and tied at +2 after a nine-hole tug-of-war for the badge. 🚨📈 Kieran Buhler snatched the lead early but slipped away into the underbrush, while Adam Gibbons and Pearson themselves swapped top spots twice before the dust settled and Pearson reclaimed what he’d lost. Prestgard set a new personal best and drilled the division’s only birdie on hole 7—a clue, perhaps, to hidden strength. Gibbons finished agonizingly close to payout, stymied by a late stall as personal records fell like dominoes on a rain-slick street.

MPO sent the sirens wailing as Houston Finch put handcuffs on the competition with a birdie on the final hole, claiming division control by force. 🦅🚓 Clayton Rackham and Bobby Schneck wrestled for the lead mid-round, but Schneck’s trouble on hole 11 shifted the balance. Five contenders were tied after the opening hole, but in the end Finch’s birdie on the last was the twist nobody saw coming. Schneck, still, shot a whopping 53 points over his rating—somebody better question how he cracked the code.

MA40 saw Brian Bowling stroll to +20 in a no-contest, but snapped a four-hole cold streak for a new personal mark. 💼📊 Meanwhile the back alleys of MA4 and MA3 felt just as hard-bitten: William Fetzer (+82) ended an unlucky 13-hole bogey slump early and then kept his lead on lockdown. Mark Gordon (+64) in MA3 survived whiplashing lead grabs to claim first, while Tim Alwine surged ahead by hole 3 only to drop it on the last—fitting, since Gordon dropped the case’s only birdie on hole 1 while Alwine countered with a solo on hole 3. These tosses were rarer than a straight cop on the take—seems awful convenient, a shot like that. I smell a rat.

On the FA2 beat, Desiree Carpenter set a new course record at +11, her round bookended by breaking out of cold streaks on holes 9 and 14. 🥏🌧️ Under the drizzle, rivals slipped while Carpenter walked her line, steady as a witness with nothing to hide.

Citywide, the night’s file was thick with excellence: Sautel’s bogeyless masterpiece, personal bests from Fox, White, Schneck and others, and rating surges that’ll keep stat-bugs up all night—Sautel (+46), White (+42), Schneck (+53). Birdies were rare, popping up only on Dragonfly’s most punishing holes (1, 3, 6, 7, 12) as rain-slick OB and rough-tangle threatened to swallow discs whole. Clutch recoveries and snapped cold-streaks ran through the scorecards like a string of locked doors and open windows in a city with secrets.

No side pots or sneaky bonus shots to report—nobody cashed in, and no aces cut through the mist. The action, like a good stakeout, kept its biggest paydays waiting for another night.

Through it all, those rookie-versus-veteran showdowns in MA1 mirrored the “First Response” drama—unpredictable partnerships tested under pressure as week one’s plot unspooled. Whiffs of something deeper drifted on the wind: hidden strengths, vulnerabilities, loyalties tested and exposed, each player an undercover agent in Dragonfly’s shadowy precinct. 📖🔦

In the end, week one set a gritty tone for the Midnight Riders’ next eight-episode investigation. Standings paint front-runners in sharp relief, but as any flatfoot knows, every lead invites a new alleyway of danger. Next week’s “Dark Alley” is waiting—and the case is just heating up. 🕵️‍♂️🔥