Northwest duo places 2nd at National College Cornhole Championship

By Jacki Wood

Two Northwest Missouri State University students made it to the finals of the National College Cornhole Championship (NCCC) which was held December 30 to January 1 at the Myrtle Beach Sports Center, Myrtle Beach, SC, and was broadcast on ESPN.

The duo, Landen Crabtree and Payton Gentry, were playing in their first tournament as teammates and came up just short in the championship to the University of Tennessee.

“The competition was really good,” Gentry said. “We got the opportunity to play in the championship which was awesome, but of course, it didn’t turn out the way we had hoped. It was really awesome to meet many other competitors and get to see how you match up against everyone around the country.”

Gentry is a senior at Northwest from Bethany studying criminology. He began playing cornhole two and a half years ago and started competing in tournaments a year and a half ago.

Crabtree is also from Bethany and is a freshman at Northwest majoring in sports media. He started playing in December 2020 and competing in tournaments in March 2021.

Prior to the doubles portion of the tournament, Crabtree and Gentry both participated in singles. Following the placement games, Gentry was seeded 20th and Crabtree was seeded 22nd. Gentry went 1-1 and Crabtree went 2-0 to advance where he ended up tying for 5th place.

During doubles, Gentry and Crabtree went 5-1 in the placement matches and were seeded 3rd.

After a first-round bye, they defeated teams from East Carolina University, Southwestern Christian University, Wilmington College and Texas A&M to make it to the finals.

The NCCC open format allows for any size college to participate in the tournament and provides scholarship money to the winning students and teams. Crabtree and Gentry received $1,500 each for their doubles play and Crabtree earned $600 for his singles play.

None of it would have been possible, however, without the support they received from their community.

“We had some local sponsors, family, friends and businesses help us before we went out to Myrtle Beach,” Gentry said. The duo was also sponsored by Draggin’ Bags, the manufacturers of the bags they threw in the doubles tournament. “We can’t thank the people who made this possible enough.”

Since Crabtree is a freshman, he hopes to make it back to the NCCC again next year and vie for the championship again. They both plan to continue to compete regionally while trying to expand the game locally.

“We are two friends who enjoy the same thing,” Gentry said. “We will probably compete together more often now, and hopefully this will lead to more opportunities for us.

“I just hope this gets more people into the game.”

If interested in learning more about the possibility of a new club and tournaments, Crabtree can be reached at landencooper88@gmail.com.