CRN Channel Madness: We're Off To The Enterprise 8

The votes are in and the door has been shut on Round 2 of the second annual CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs.

The Solutions 16 was something of a statement round for the chiefs advancing to Round 3, with all but one of the second-round matchups being decided by double digits.

So here we stand, 12 days into Channel Madness, with the field of 32 now down to the Enterprise 8. Let's take a look at how we got here and what to watch for in Round 3.

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Defending champ Mike Valentine of Sophos showed he wasn't rattled by having to play from behind, overcoming a weekend deficit to lock down a big win over Red Hat's Mark Enzweiler. Valentine secured a 67 percent to 33 percent win over Enzweiler to advance to the Enterprise 8 in the Software region.

Valentine will face Microsoft's Phil Sorgen in the third round. Sorgen followed a similar path to Valentine as he too trailed heading into the weekend only to flip the script on SAP's Rodolpho Cardenuto and ultimately lock down a 63 percent to 37 percent win. The victory marks Sorgen's first trip to the Enterprise 8.

In the Infrastructure region, Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Kerry Bailey never trailed Nutanix's Chris Morgan on his way to a 70 percent to 30 percent win. Bailey is making his presence known in his first-ever tournament appearance.

Bailey's colleague, Scott Dunsire, however, was unable to make it an all-HPE Infrastructure Round 3. Dunsire fell to Extreme's Bob Gault 81 percent to 19 percent. Gault will get a chance to avenge his quick exit from last year's tournament at the hands of HP's Sue Barsamian as he squares off with Bailey in the Enterprise 8.

Lenovo's Sammy Kinlaw is posting a strong showing so far in his first tournament appearance, punching a ticket to the Enterprise 8 with a 64 percent to 36 percent victory over Intel's Maurits Tichelman.

Kinlaw will square off with Sandra Glaser Cheek in the Hardware portion of the Enterprise 8. The Ruckus representative earned a Round 3 berth in her first tournament appearance by knocking off Dell's Frank Vitagliano 73 percent to 27 percent.

Things finally got a little tighter in the Cloud region. In a back-and-forth matchup, Datto's Rob Rae ultimately topped Carbonite's Jessica Couto 53 percent to 47 percent. Rae will draw Brooks McCorcle of AT&T in Round 3.

McCorcle bested VMware's Frank Rauch 59 percent to 41 percent for her first-ever trip to the Enterprise 8. This was the tightest matchup for most of the round until McCorcle took control of the lead on Monday and never looked back.

Voting in Round 3 opens at 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday, March 29, and will remain open until Thursday, March 31, at 12 p.m. ET.

Visit CRN.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!