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08/12/2021 12:00 AMAndy Perna has been lighting up the B Division of the Deep River Horseshoe League (DRHL) for several weeks. From Week 10 through Week 14, no Division B player scored a higher series tally than Andy. Andy’s team, the Reds, held onto first place with a 6.5 game lead over the second place Dodgers thanks in no small part to Andy’s contributions.
Andy and his wife Karen are the only husband and wife duo who play in the DRHL, but both of them play on separate teams. Karen is a member of the Pirates. Both Andy and Karen began playing in the DRHL just three years ago, and during their tenure, they have made some friends and gotten better at the sport. Prior to joining the DRHL, Andy had only even thrown horseshoes at picnics and barbecues.
“We moved into Connecticut seven years ago, so we were always looking for ways to meet people. Karen was reading the paper and saw they were looking for horseshoes player and said, ‘Why don’t we try this?’ We started three years ago,” says Andy. “I played in some picnics, and Karen had never picked up a horseshoe. We got interested because the people were good, and they were nice. We got to meet some new friends.”
After logging some time at the pits, Andy found that he and Karen both had a knack for pitching shoes. It wasn’t long before Andy and his wife became proficient enough to grab a tournament victory.
“I never gave throwing horseshoes much thought at those picnics. The only reason I would play is if someone asked me. Once Karen and I got into the league, it got competitive,” Andy says. “The first year we actually played horseshoes in the fall of 2019, we played in a doubles league tournament, and we won. That piqued our interest even more. We thought it was pretty cool, so we kept paying.”
Andy has seen his progress over his few years in the DRHL, and he’s proud of how far he’s come as a thrower.
“I’ve always been a B player. When I started as a B player, I think my average score per game in 2019 was 20, in 2020 it was 26, and my average now is 30,” says Andy, who lives in Chester. “My goal is to shoot 120 between the four games I play in a series.”
Andy has been impressed with the Reds’ performance this season. Andy and his teammates, A Player Gary “Pudge” Goodrich and C Player Jim Weselcouch haven’t been dominating the competition per se, but they have supported each other when they need it most.
“I think when one person isn’t playing well, another person is picking us up. If I’m not playing well Pudge is playing well,” Andy says. “I think more to the point is that our C Player, Jim Weselcouch, is a first-year player who only started out getting four or five points a game, and now he’s averaging 10 to 16 points a game. I have a bit of input, too, but I think he’s the biggest factor. He gets us a decent handicap, and then he throws a decent game and we end up winning.”
There’s more than one way to throw a shoe, but Andy prefers tossing using a flip technique, where a shoe flips end over end as it careens toward the pin. A handful of pitchers use a turn, where a horseshoe travels more like a Frisbee. Throwing a turn might net Andy a few more points a game, but he feels perfecting that form could be a huge sunk cost for a small payoff. Andy will stick with the flip.
“I’ve tried to throw a turn shoe. Given enough time to practice the turn, I think I could do it like anything else, but is it worth it? How much time would I put in to gain a few more points in a game. I have fun throwing a flip, and I do it pretty well. I think that it makes sense to stick with it,” says Andy. “The mechanics are basically the same as bowling. It’s all basically hand-eye coordination and being able to repeat the same motion over and over again. If you can do that, you can get really proficient at the game. The problem is obviously you have good days and bad days.”
Andy and Karen live very close to the Deep River First Congregational Church green, where the DRHL meets for matches every week. That close proximity allows for both Pernas to sharpen their skills and mechanics throwing shoes.
“I have found that I have to get the shoe up to my shoulder when I release to get it high enough to reach the pin. You have to have the fluid motion and get the release at the top of your swing,” Andy says. “In bowling, I use a four-step approach with the same arm swing, except I drop the ball down and swing it back up again. For horseshoes, I’ve cut that in half. I take a two-step approach with the same motion and arm swing. It makes it easier to repeat because I’ve done it for 50 years with bowling.”
Andy and Karen were nervous that they wouldn’t get the chance to throw shoes during the height of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Luckily the town and the league worked out a safe way for the league to compete.
“It was huge to get that last year. We had been looking forward to it since the winter league we play in ended,” says Andy. “We were really disappointed when we couldn’t play at the beginning of the season. Even though we couldn’t play, Karen and I went down to Deep River to practice before the league was able to start.”
As the season winds down, Andy and his Reds are eyeing the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. As far as the distant future of the DRHL, the biggest thing that Andy would like to see happen would be for more people, especially women, to come out to play.
“Karen and I are the only husband and wife that play in the league. There are only three women in the league total, and there’s no reason more women don’t play in the league,” Perna says. “A lot of the men in the league’s wives also play horseshoes in general, but they don’t play in the league for some reason. Just like Karen is very competitive, I think a lot of those women would be, too. We would like to see that. There is a lot of room for more people to be able to play.”