Lenovo’s McFarland Advances With Buzzer-Beater: Round 2 Madness Results

An energetic effort from Lenovo’s Wade McFarland as time expired pushed the channel chief into the quarterfinal round of the CRN Channel Madness Tournament.

Round 2 of the CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs has come to a close with a come-from-behind win at the buzzer in a standoff between two tournament rookies.

Here’s a look at how the Solutions 16 fared and who’s moving on to the quarterfinal round as the Enterprise 8.

All eyes quickly turned to the hottest contest of the round in the Innovation region, where tournament newcomer Wade McFarland of Lenovo faced an uphill battle against 1Password’s Larissa Crandall, another tournament newcomer. Crandall held the lead Monday afternoon but by Tuesday morning as voting came to a close, McFarland turned up the heat and surged ahead to win with 51 percent of the vote to Crandall’s 49 percent.

In the Transformation region, HP Inc.’s Scott Lannum held off Cloudflare’s Christine McElduff with 58 percent of the vote to McElduff’s 42 percent.

Arctic Wolf’s Bob Skelley grew his lead and won with 57 percent of the vote against Red Hat’s Jennifer Heard, who ended with 43 percent.

Meanwhile in the Acceleration region, CrowdStrike’s Michael Rogers is advancing to the quarterfinal rounds for the first time since he began competing in 2022. Rogers looked strong, finishing with 57 percent of the vote in his matchup against OpenText’s Michael DePalma, a semifinalist in last year’s tournament, who ended with 43 percent.

Here’s a look at the full results:

Transformation

Christine McElduff, Cloudflare, 42 percent vs. Scott Lannum, HP Inc., 58 percent

Bob Skelley, Arctic Wolf, 57 percent vs. Jennifer Heard, Red Hat, 43 percent

Acceleration

Michael DePalma, OpenText, 43 percent vs. Michael Rogers, CrowdStrike, 57 percent

Dan Tomaszewski, Kaseya, 37 percent vs. Lisa Citron, F5, 63 percent

Innovation

Christian Goffi, Nutanix, 64 percent vs. Denise Millard, Dell Technologies, 36 percent

Larissa Crandall, 1Password, 49 percent vs. Wade McFarland, Lenovo, 51 percent

Evolution

Kevin Rooney, Veeam Software, 60 percent vs. Landon Scott, Fortinet, 40 percent

Scott Barlow, Sophos, 77 percent vs. Brian Lanigan, SentinelOne, 23 percent

That sets up the Enterprise 8 quarterfinal matchups, which will see HP Inc.’s Scott Lannum square off against Arctic Wolf’s Bob Skelley for the Transformation crown, while CrowdStrike’s Michael Rogers faces F5’s Lisa Citron for the Acceleration title.

On the other side of the bracket, Nutanix’s Christian Goffi takes on Lenovo’s Wade McFarland for the Innovation title, while Veeam’s Kevin Rooney challenges Sophos’ Scott Barlow for the Evolution crown.

Voting in Round 3 opens today, Tuesday, March 24 at 4:00 PM ET and remains open until Thursday, March 26 at noon ET.

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