-by Martin Mulkerrins
College Station, TX, 4/10/24
The WPH was proud to have sponsored the 2024 WPH Pre-Qualifier Charlie Bokelman Classic and Texas State Doubles Championship at Texas A&M University (recap HERE). Ninety collegiate players entered the Bokelman Classic/State Doubles, with thirty-two of those students also participating in the inaugural Doug Randolph Cup. This new, innovative team tournament pitted students from Texas A&M, the University of Texas, Angelo State University and Missouri State University against each other for $10k in scholarship funds.
Since February’s Collegiate Nationals, each school had been preparing and playing trials to select their eight player teams. Each school played each other in the following format:
- 1X Men’s Singles
- 1x Women’s Singles
- Men’s Doubles Team 1
- Men’s Doubles Team 2
- Women’s Doubles Team
Each of the matches were two games to fifteen with no tiebreakers. With a total of 450 points available over the three rounds, Angelo State University came out on top! The Rams scored a total of 400 points, with Texas A&M pushing them all the way with a final score of 381 points.
Diarmuid Mulkerrins and his teammates were thrilled to take the title home to West Texas. Diarmuid shared his thoughts with the WPH after his team’s Randolph Cup win.
“The Randolph Cup was very exciting. The format was new here and it made every game interesting regardless of the score because every point mattered. Up until the very last game of the tournament the winners were yet to be decided, A&M had a 10-point lead on us at that stage and it just shows how competitive it was last weekend. I think the Randolph Cup will be a major event going forward, one of the biggest tournaments of the year, it’s unique, has a strong team element and scholarships for students to compete for. It meant a lot to our players, it was rewarding after all the hard work they’ve put in all year to beat Texas A&M, UT and Missouri. The scholarships meant a lot too and I hope this helps towards continued growth of the program at ASU.
Tournament director and seven-time Race 4 Eight champion Martin Mulkerrins added to his brother’s enthusiasm and appreciation.
“We were determined to honor Doug Randolph. His three $1million dollar donations to promote Handball at Texas A&M, the University of Texas and Angelo State University have been incredible for our sport. We were delighted Doug was home from his travels and was able to attend the tournament and present the trophy and $10k in scholarships that he sponsored. We now look forward to next year where we will travel to Lubbock, Texas where Doug lives. We will play at Lubbock Christian College where he has built the Handball Courts and hopes to develop a Handball program there. We plan to continue our fantastic relationship with the WPH to make next year’s tournament even better”.
Final Scores
1ST Angelo State University (400pts)
2nd Texas A&M University (381pts)
3rd Missouri State University (287pts)
4th University of Texas (188pts)
Some of the final round matches are available to watch on the Texas A&M Handball Club Facebook page as are additional videos by Martin Mulkerrins outlining the tournament format.
“JR WPH was proud to support the inaugural Randolph Cup and will continue to support the tremendous efforts of both Martin and Diarmuid Mulkerrins to grow the collegiate game,” stated JR WPH’s David Fink.
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Photographs thanks to Eilish Owens
Martin Mulkerrins
WPH Correspondent