Virsilaite and Dauernheim Earn Player of the Year Honors
2006 was a year of firsts on the EVP Tour. We saw a rookie, Rasa Virsilaite, win Female Player of the Year for the first time. Mike Dauernheim was the first to repeat as Male Player of the Year. In 2006, Team Chicago was the first midwest team to have both Male and Female Players of the Year(Team Hermosa Beach's Leanne Haarbauer and Mark Paaluhi were the first team to accomplish the feat). It was the first time a male player, Mike Dauernheim, won 5 events in one season(Erin Grey had 5 victories on the women's side in 2001). We hosted our first $10000 purse event in Racine, WI.
The road for Rasa and Mike was not an easy one. Rasa, a standout indoor player at the Univerity of Illinois, had to win the final tournament to hold off previous Female Player of the Year, Leanne Haarbauer, to clinch the title. Rasa finished the season with 3 victories, 2 in Chicago and 1 in Honolulu. Mike, the reigning Male Player of the Year, also needed a victory in the final event to secure the Male Player of the Year title holding off Mike Diehl by a narrow margin. He had a record 5 wins with three different partners - Keith Schunzel(2), Dan Schultz(2) and Ryan Owens(1).
We look forward to both competing for their respective Player of the Year titles once again in 2007.