Sitting in 4,646th place doesn’t sound like much.

It means plenty to former Meridian resident Peter Richdale. That’s where he stands in ESPN.com’s Tournament Challenge, the website’s nationwide NCAA basketball March Madness contest.

“I’m up in the 99.9 percentile,” Richdale said. “Millions of people are in that contest.”

The 68-year-old former president of the Butler Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce moved near Allentown in eastern Pennsylvania a year ago to be closer to family.

A three-sport athlete in high school, Richdale always had a passion for March Madness.

“I’ve been filling out brackets for 25 years,” he said. “I did the Butler Eagle’s, ESPN’s and the one on CBS.com ... I’ve never done as well as this.”

Richdale has all of this year’s Final Four — Kentucky, Louisville, Ohio State and Kansas — on his bracket.

He has Ohio State defeating Kentucky, 88-85, in Monday’s national championship game.

“I don’t know how far up the ladder I can get, but I’m excited about where I’m at,” Richdale said. “I played four entries and my next closest ranks 1,000,544th — and is still in the top 24 percent.

“That shows how many millions of people do this thing.”

Richdale’s top entry has 1,010 points so far. Eleven entrants are tied for the top spot with 1,140. Another 72 entries have 1,100 points or more.

“I had one bad round in there and that hurt me,” Richdale said. “I picked Duke to go deep, like millions of other people, and I had Missouri playing for a while.

“I only live about 10 miles from Lehigh (No. 15 seed that upset Duke in the first round), so that was fun to watch.”

Richdale said he picked Louisville “because I watched them a lot toward the end of the year and they were hot. Kentucky’s Kentucky, Kansas has a couple of big men who I figured would be too tough to beat and my daughter went to Ohio State.”

Not too much in-depth-thinking, perhaps, but who needs it?

“One crazy basket can ruin the whole tournament,” Richdale said. “That’s why they call it March Madness.”