Points Race Champions

AF TOURNAMENTS – It was a pair of near photo finishes in both the Points Race – Invitational and the Points Race – OPEN this season in two of the closest finishes ever as LUNIZ and 4th down and Inches cross the finish to take the checkered flags.

For LUNIZ, in the Invitational, it was the ultimate redemption after being the first team eliminated in 2015’s tournament, this season they staged a perfect rally going from last place, nearly eliminated several times, to overtake all other teams and land in the winner’s circle.  In a week 17, final push, they edged out second place finisher Mighty Pats – the 2015 OPEN Champion – by a margin of just 34 points on the season.  The four year tournament veteran finished the 2016 tournament with a season total of 2378.47 points, putting them in the record books in 4th place of all time Invitational finishes, just ahead of the 2015 Champion Fidelio.

In the OPEN, the race was almost as close, with the veteran 4th down and Inches and, second place finisher, tournament rookie, Impin’ Ain’t Easy, jockeying for position over the final two weeks, to finish the season separated by a margin of only 54 points.  A veteran of the Points Race format, 4th down and Inches has played 3 seasons in the Invitational, and with the OPEN Championship in hand, will receive an automatic bid into the 2017 Invitational.  They finish 2016’s race with a season total of 2423.42 points, good enough for second highest finish in the tournament’s history, and incidentally, higher than any of their prior finishes in the Invitational version of the race.

Because of a discrepancy with the hosting site, both second place finishers have been inadvertently listed as 2016 Champions on NFL.com, but it is LUNIZ and 4th and Inches that will be entered into the Associated Fantasy Tournament record as the season Champs.  They will also be entered as such in the AF Tournament Hall of Records, planned for a 2017 debut.