Wow! The 4 day tourna-palooza was absolutely incredible. We had 99 teams on Saturday, 24 members at the PMI on Sunday, 30 members at the banquet Sunday night, and 71 more entries on Monday and Tuesday for the 2013 season opener and we paid out over $7,000.00 in 4 days’ worth of bowling. The director is tired! However, there were a lot of memories and good times had in this epic 4 day stretch. We got to watch Bo Copeland and Tim Bryden win the Criss Cross doubles (Results - Click Here), David Kurlan take home the PMI title (Results - Click Here) , and Lynn Arthur accept his 2012 Player of the Year award (Summary & Pics - Click Here) at the banquet.
The other thing that we were running for this 4 day stretch was the Jim Vournas Mega Raffle. Jim Vournas was an incredible guy that was a huge advocate for the sport of bowling. He recently passed away, and we raffled off a bunch of prizes to generate proceeds for the Vournas family. Congrats to some of the big winners. Bo Copeland won the free TAT entry. Charlie Light won the Track 811C/T and many others won free entries into events. We generated over $300 in raffle sales to help the Vournas family with the services for Jim. Thanks to all of you for participating.
Now let’s recap our 2013 season opening event! The participants bowled on one of the most demanding lane conditions we have ever used. The pattern was a 44ft modified house pattern, but it played much flatter than we anticipated. The scores were low, and there was a large emphasis on spare shooting. The season opener used the same pattern as the 2012 Pruitt’s Match Play Invitational. It was interesting to see if the bowlers that bowled well in the PMI event would bowl well in this event also.
First I would like to welcome some new members to the SFT family. We continue to grow each and every event, and it is because new members continue to come and give the SFT AHT a try. Joe Claspell, Chris Dancer, Travis McKindra, David Hand, John Payan, Jakob Butturff, Aaron Mendoza, Sue Swink, Carmen McGalliard, Marie Redlin, Brian Weyrauch, Maurice Shavers, and Jeff Maestas all came out to join us in the 4 day tourna-palooza! I want to thank all of you for giving us the opportunity of having you all bowl with us. I hope you enjoyed it, and we look forward to seeing you all again!
We did have a parlay success story also! Hokey Begay won the Economy Parlay on Monday afternoon and then bowled a huge +122 on a very demanding condition. He didn’t stop there as he kept crushing them in the quarter finals, and ended up just finishing 1 match short of the very final match! Congrats Hokey on turning your $25 Economy Parlay entry fee into $170! Great bowling buddy!
We also had a very exciting semifinal match. Hokey Begay and Ben Spencer’s match was a nail biter. Ben finished the match first, and a spare and 7 in the fill left him with 215 with handicap. This meant that Hokey could still win the match, but an 8 count on his first ball meant he now had to cover the spare and strike to tie. He covered the spare, and then pulled it a little to go Brooklyn for the strike and 215 to 215 tie! This meant they went into a 9th and 10th frame roll off. It was exciting and it was clear that both players were a little nervous with everyone watching their roll off. Hokey went first throwing a strike in his 9th frame. Ben spared in his 9th and struck in the first ball of the 10th. He then got 7 and 0 to finish the roll off with a score of 41.4. Hokey got up and struck in his first ball in the 10th which closed the door shut for Ben. Hokey was going to the A division championship match.
David Kurlan won the “A” division championship match pretty convincingly with a nice 260 with handicap. It was clear that David could play the lanes in a way that no one else could. He was throwing it very hard, with end over end roll, fading the ball into the pocket. He was the only player that could do this, and it was clear it was benefiting him tremendously. He then bowled Ted McKay in the final match, and he won that match as well with a 213 to 191 victory. It was clear that it was David’s weekend as he won the PMI event on Sunday and also took home the title on Tuesday. However, since he used an exemption for this event, that he won from the PMI, Ted will still have the early lead in the season long points race.
I want to thank all of the SFT AHT members for making this another successful f event. Make sure you all keep your eyes peeled on the site all week long for more updates and website reconstruction. We look forward to seeing you all at our next event at Brunswick Kyrene Lanes on January 12th and 13th. This event will feature all of the SFT AHT fan favorites like, $100 per game side pots, divisional insurance, senior and women’s division, prize funds guaranteed top to bottom and much more! See you all there!
