It was a fun one as always! We had 92 entries, 24 cashers, a 1 in 3.8 cash ratio and paid out over $4,000 in the main event and side event prize funds. We also had some new bowlers come out to join us for the first time. I would like to welcome Garrett Stilwell, Marty Estes, Brian Grommes, Steven Lee, and Brian Lee to the SFT AHT family. I hope you all had a good time in your first event, and look forward to seeing you at the next one!
All of the players bowled on a 42ft modified house pattern that proved to be much more difficult on the fresh, and open up as the day went on. Most of the player either played inside or in between 2nd and 3rd arrow. There weren’t any players that were able to play them further right then the 10 board. The real hassle was the pair to pair differences. The players that were able to throw good shots when they changed pairs, and make the proper adjustments without losing too many pins were the players that ended up on top.
We had quite a few players show the POWER OF THE PARLAY! As always, have to congratulate them! Those bowlers were Susan O’Hara, Robert Lewis and Daniel Scott! Robert is getting close to taking the title of “parlay assassin” from Dylan Taylor. Robert parlayed himself to the semi-finals in a few events and did it again all the way to the quarter finals at this event. Dylan was dubbed the parlay assassin as he has won quite a few economy parlay tournaments and advanced to the quarter finals off them. Dylan, you better watch out, Robert is after your job!
The quarter finals and semi-finals had some pretty high scores. The quarter finals had 20 total bowlers in it and each division advanced to the top 3 bowlers. The cut for the top 3 bowlers in the A division was +98 and top 3 in B was +75. The seeds in A were, #1 William Nedry, #2 Joe Mascio and #3 Brian Waugh who bowled a huge 279 game to sneak into the semi-final round. The seeds in the B division were, #1 Tom Large, #2 Daniel Scott, and #3 Brian Cail.
The semi-final rounds finished and the A division champion was Joe Mascio and the B division champion was Tom Large. This meant that we were going to have a first time champion! The final was an INCREDIBLE ONE! Both players threw some great shots, and had strings going back and forth at each other! Tom finished first and left Joe’s fate in his own hands. If Joe just got good count in the 10th, a mark, and good count again he would be the champion. The young 24 year old got up in the 10th, got a little soft with his speed and went through the face leaving a 3,6,9,10. He needed to make it or he would lose, it wasn’t an easy spare for the conditions but he covered it! He then needed a strike to win by 1 and 9 was a tie! Sure enough he got 9, and we headed to a 9th and 10th frame roll off.
The interesting thing about this roll off was that the last time that Tom was in a 9th and 10th frame roll off, it was his opponent’s birthday, and his opponent won. Today ironically enough, was Tom’s birthday, would he win, like his opponent did? Joe ended up opening in the 10th of the roll off which mean Tom was now in the same position Joe was in the 10th frame of the final match. He just needed to fill frames with good count. Tom showed his experience and poise with a great strike in the first shot, and then left a bucket, but only needed two to still win. He covered the spare, and ended up winning the $1,000.00, the big check and probably one of the most exciting final matches we have ever seen!
Thanks to everyone for coming out! We will see a lot of you at the TAT in Vegas on July 1st through the 6th. For those of you that are going, make sure you mention that you are a SFT AHT member to still get the early sign up benefits! See you all up there!
