Geiger wins ACO Player of the Year
There are many colloquial names for the yard game that sees players taking turns tossing bean bags at an angled board with a hole cut into the far end. Bags, bean bag toss, sack toss; the names go on. But one American pro circuit has decided to go with the term “cornhole,” which might sound a bit blasphemous depending on who you talk to. Regardless of the name, however, the game still plays the same, and Dorchester resident Maggie Geiger is especially good at said game. Geiger was ranked number one in the American Cornhole Organization’s women’s division going into the league’s championship series, held last week, and she proved why she was deserving of such a rating at the event.
The American Cornhole Organization, or ACO, has been around since 2005 and has hosted 17 seasons during that span. Much as the game gains popularity in stadium parking lots and at backyard barbeques, so too does the ACO grow. The league hosted its Season 17 finale this last week with the ACO World Championship tournament in Branson, Mo. The five-day event saw the best competitors from the league travel in from across the country to take part in the final event.
Based on her performances at regional and major tournaments over the past year, Geiger had maxed out the point system the ACO uses to rank its players. However, so had Amber Fretwell of Russellville, Ala., leaving the pair tied at the top. The ACO’s Player of the Year award is given to the player who sits atop the rankings at the end of each season, and given the tie, Geiger and Fretwell were set to face off against each other in a tiebreaker, best of three match-up to determine who would take home the title.
The tiebreaker, held on Tuesday, July 26, saw the pair split their first two games, with Geiger coming back from being down 9-0 in the opener and then Fretwell bringing it back with a game 2 victory to set up the decider in game 3. Geiger took a decisive 10-0 lead in the final game, and while Fretwell would come back, having almost evened the score at 11-10, Geiger would take home the final game, finishing off the game with an excellent block that made a shot from Fretwell almost impossible. Fretwell could not convert and the Dorchester native would claim the final game with a score of 21-16.
Geiger’s victory earned her a second career Player of the Year award. And while it ultimately came down to a final game with Fretwell, this was a culmination of a season’s worth of competition.
“This is something that you have to work on all year long,” Geiger said.
This season came with its own set of challenges, as Geiger was pregnant with her youngest child for a good portion of the season.
“It was a little bit more of a struggle,” she said when asked how this season differed from prior ones. “You start tournaments at nine in the morning and sometimes you don’t get done until midnight. Physically it was a lot harder.”
“The last major I went to was in February,” she added. “My body couldn’t handle throwing all the time. So it kind of put a little bit of pressure on having to do well early in the season, since I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it out at the end of this season.”
In the end though, all that hard work seems to have paid off.
In addition to the Player of the Year tiebreaker, Geiger also participated in several other events at the ACO World Championships. She placed third in the women’s single’s bracket and 20th out of around 400 players in the overall singles tournament. She also placed 5th in the women’s doubles bracket with partner Mary Wheeler-Miller and third in the coed doubles tournament.
She competes with her father, Wayne Rau, in the co-ed and overall doubles tournaments, an experience that she appreciates.
“How many people can say that they do something like travel around the world and get such accomplishments like this with their parent or child?” Geiger said about playing with her dad. “It’s pretty amazing, and I enjoy it a lot.”
