Our event today was a huge success! We made a return to AMF Christown Lanes, and it drew 91 entries in 2 squads which is just under 50 bowlers per squad! A big thanks to the SFT family and all of the new bowlers coming out to help our season get kicked off with a huge bang! The 91 entries had 24 cashers, a 1 in 3.8 cash ratio and paid out over $4,000.00 in main and side event prize fund. The players bowled on the 35ft boardwalk oil pattern. It showed one of the biggest disparities between the scoring pace from squad 1 to squad 2. Squad 1, the lanes hooked a lot more and played more traditional to short patterns. However, as the oil carried down the scoring really plummeted. Squad 1 took scores like +100 to win the economy parlay, but the second squad ended up with cut scores that were barely plus at all.
As always, we like to welcome all of the bowlers that came out to join us for the first ever SFT AHT event. Justin Thomas, Todd Wacks, Brandon Schneider, Matthew Darden, Terry Lamb, Garrett Preszler, Michael Mathis, Monica Anderson, and Mark Brower, we hope you all had a good time with us! A special congrats to Todd Wacks and Terry Lamb for making it to the quarter finals in their first event bowled! Congrats guys!
The quarter finals started with 18 players, and advanced the top 2 in each division to the semi-final round. The A division had #1 seed Tony Maresca vs #2 seed Jason Satterlee. B Division was #1 seed Brian Jackson vs #2 seed Estell Gushwa, and C division, #1 seed Troy Blickenstaff vs #2 seed Timothy Samtoba. The matches were all pretty exciting. The least exciting was Brian and Estell, but was still pretty exciting. It had Brian striking in the 8th and 9th and Estell opening in the 9th and 10th to allow Brian to turn the tables on a big lead Estell had and eventually give Brian the win. The A division had Tony striking out first in the 10th frame to force Jason to strike out to beat him, which Jason wasn’t able to do. The C division was the most exciting having Troy finish last in the match, and needing a spare and a strike to win by one. He didn’t strike on the first ball and was able to convert the spare, and then threw a great shot to get the strike and win his match by one pin.
The final match was a rocky one, but pretty straight forward the whole time. Troy started off with the lead and was making great shots. Tony really struggled in the beginning and was getting a bit fatigued from all of the games he had bowled. Tony started to put together a string to get back into it but had a shot that went high which shut him out of the match early. It left it between Troy and Brian going into the 10th. Troy had a small lead and could shut Brian out with a strike, but anything less would Brian the chance to strike out to win. Troy through a great shot again to shut Brian out in a very clutch performance, especially for a 16 year old. Awesome event, and awesome bowling to everyone!
We look forward to seeing many of you at the TAT this week and weekend and hope to see you at our next event at Brunswick Kyrene!
