Our event this weekend was at AMF Deer Valley and even though it was on Easter Sunday we had a great turn out of 73 entries (59 qualifying and 24 economy parlay), with 22 cashers a 1 in 3.3 cash ratio and a pay out of over $3,000.00 in main and side event prizes! The players bowled on the 38ft Atlanta patter n that proved to be very difficult. The cut scores were all very low being around +20, which means the players didn’t even need to bowl their average for series to advance. The pattern did allow for players to play a variety of angles though. There were players scoring from pretty much anywhere except extremely deep angles.
As always we like to welcome all of the new bowlers that came out to join us in their first ever event. Welcome John Fitzgerald, Lee Fitzgerald, Will Fitzgerald, Shawn Seng, Shawn Seng Jr., Alex Seng, and Rich Gruenzner to the SFT AHT family! We hope all of you had a good time at your first event! A big congrats to John Fitzgerald who made it all the way to the final match in his first ever event! That doesn’t happen that often! Nice bowling! Also congrats to Zach Beckett, John Fitzgerald, and Will Fitzgerald on advancing to the quarter finals for the first time ever. Also congrats to Zach for also being this event’s Parlay Power Player.
The semi-final matches were between #1 seed Ernie Mendoza and #2 seed Ron Gonzales in the A division, #1 seed John Fitzgerald vs #2 seed Armando Viramontes in the B Division, and #1 seed Ryan Riley vs #2 seed Ernie Malapo in the C division. The C division was decided in the last couple frames with Ryan shutting Ernie out with a 225 with handicap to move on to his first ever final match. The B division was over a bit faster with John getting off to a lead and winning with 229 with handicap. The A division match was between current overall player of the year Ernie Mendoza and previous player of the year Ron Gonzales. As expected, it was a dog fight, going all the way to the 10th frame. Ron needed a double in the 10th to win and threw two great shots to pull it out.
The final match started off close, but it was clear that Ryan Riley was there to win. He had been putting in a lot of time on the lanes, bowling practically every day. His game has shown it with some dramatic improvement and in the final match he bowled a huge 258 with handicap to win in pretty dominating fashion. Ron finished 2nd and John 3rd.
Thanks to everyone for making the holiday event such a successful one! We hope you check out our tournament partner’s events this weekend! Brunswick Mesa Baker Doubles on Saturday and the ACBA event on Sunday at Glenfair Lanes!
