NILES — There have been only a handful of dynasties when it comes to the International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship at Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm near Eau Claire.

The first was Rick “Pellet Gun” Krause, who has won 18 titles. His wife Marlene “Machine Gun” Krause and son Brian Krause also where championship spitters.

Then there was the Lessard family from Blenheim, Ontario in Canada who battled with Krauses for the crown in the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s.

Now a third dynasty has emerged in the Bartz family from Niles.

Kevin “Boomerang” Bartz, also known as the Eddies’ state championship winning football coach, picked up his second championship last Saturday at the 46th annual pit spit. He was joined on the winner’s podium by daughter Chloe Bartz, who is now a three-time winner in the women’s division.

The Bartz lineage can be traced back three generations to Richard Bartz, Kevin’s grandfather, who won the event in 1977. Kevin is also a former youth division winner. He picked up his first title with a spit of 34-feet in 1977.

“It is kind of one of those things,” Bartz said. “My kids were winning everything, so I finally got a win about three years ago. It is obviously something you just go out to do for fun. We mainly go there because it is something the family can get together and do on the Fourth of July weekend. We joke about it, and my wife (Kim) is embarrassed about it.”

Son Zach Bartz has also spat a pit or two at the championships. He captured the Youth Division 6-8 three consecutive years from 2011 through 2013.

Kevin’s championship spit of 58-3.25 easily outdistanced runner-up Kevin Hester of St. Joseph, who measured 54-9.25 with his spit. “Pellet Gun” Krause’s effort of 46-5.5 earned his third place.

Chloe’s winning effort measured 44-5.25. Mary Hester, of St. Joseph, was the runner-up with a spit of 36-5.5.

“She is probably the best overall spitter in the family,” Kevin said. “She has never lost since she has been doing it.”

Kevin Bartz, who is the head football coach at Edwardsburg, won his first championship in 2015 with a distance of 48-8.

He says that they do very little in the way of preparation for the event. Which might be a good thing.

“We will grab a bag a cherries the week before and go out onto the driveway,” he said. “It is usually somewhere between six and 10 spits a day for four or five days before, and that is about it. The day of competition, if you just keep practicing and warming up, you actually get worse as you go. On the day of competition, we might spit two or three before the actual event. It is one of those sports that once you get your technique down, less is better.”

As for the nickname Boomerang?

“You know what, ESPN put me on the spot,” he said. “They just got done interviewing ‘Pellet Gun’ Krause and they were like, ‘what is your nickname?’ I was like, ‘I don’t have a nickname.’ They said ‘you have to have a nickname to be in this.’ I told them I don’t have one. They said they were going on air in about 30 seconds, so you need to come up with one or we will make one up.”

Trying to come up with something that rhymed, Bartz ended up with Boomerang.

“Of course, as soon as I got done I wanted to be Kevin ‘The Cannon’ Bartz instead,” he revealed. “That was the best I could come up with in my 30 seconds. But with the type of celebrity status I have with this, I don’t think I am locked into it. I think I can still switch to ‘The Cannon’.”

As the winners, Kevin and Chloe received gift boxes with donations from local businesses.

The International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship was recorded by ESPN and will be aired at a later date.