CRN Channel Madness Semifinals: Sophos's Valentine, Verizon's Famularo Survive Field Of Four

After 18 days of voting across four rounds, over 100,000 ballots have been cast, and we're down to two remaining executives in the CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs.

Let's take a look at how the semifinals shook out.

The scales shifted dramatically after weekend voting in the contest between Shannon Sbar of APC by Schneider Electric and Sophos's Mike Valentine. Valentine was already ahead Friday morning but moved into overdrive throughout the past few days to extend his lead. We say good night and good luck to Sbar as Valentine wins this one 71 percent to 29 percent.

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IBM's Marc Dupaquier came into the semifinals looking strong but it seems in this round, Verizon's Adam Famularo ate more Wheaties and came in stronger. Famularo jumped out to an early lead on Friday and never looked back, sending Dupaquier to the locker room with a 62 percent to 38 percent victory.

So now we look ahead to the championship round, where Sophos's Mike Valentine and Verizon's Adam Famularo will go toe to toe.

Representing the Hardware region, Valentine pulled together a string of impressive wins to make his way to the final, overcoming Intel's Maurits Tichelman, NetApp's Thomas Stanley and Ruckus's Ron Gill before besting Sbar in the semifinals.

Famularo wears the Cloud crown, coming into this final after ousting NetSuite's Craig West, VMware's Dave O'Callaghan and VMware's Frank Rauch before taking down Dupaquier in the Field of Four.

With the final round comes your last chance to win a limited edition CRN Channel Madness t-shirt. Tweet @CRN with the hashtag of your favorite finalist, #TeamValentine or #TeamFamularo between now and 10:00 AM ET on Wednesday, April 8. Five lucky fans will be randomly selected to win a shirt [official rules].

Valentine Vs. Famularo for the CRN Channel Madness championship kicks off today at 4:00 PM ET and closes Wednesday, April 8 at 10:00 AM ET. Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief.

PUBLISHED APRIL 6, 2015