Alter wins "Madden 09" tourney in Compton

SAN DIEGO - Illy "Sparkzz" Alter won the latest West Coast Classic "Madden 09" tournament on Saturday with a 10-point win in the championship match.

At Gray's Tax Service in Compton, Alter went with the Jacksonville Jaguars the whole tournament and finished off his championship run with a 34-24 victory over Inglewood's Jovan Maze.

It was a Jaguars ditto match in the finals.

Jovan Maze might have finished second, but he was the best Jovan in the tournament. In a preliminary, he took out former Madden Nation participant Jovan Lakey, who chose the rarely used Tennessee Titans.

But the day belonged to Santa Monica's Alter, who had to survive a couple close preliminary matches against a New England Patriots user and then a Dallas Cowboys user.

Alter has come close a couple times to winning a championship; it was Saturday where he finally hit paydirt.

At Shiekh Shoes in Culver City in August, he lost in the semifinals to eventual winner Eric "Problem" Velarde. A couple months later, he reached the semifinals of the Main Event Gaming tournament in Hollywood, only to lose to Velarde again.

Saturday's tournament was the penultimate; the Dec. 13 competition will be the last one run in Compton by tournament organizer Anthony Gray until possibly mid-Spring.