The majors are always exciting! Our biggest payouts, turnouts and most anticipated events of the entire season. We currently have two majors each year, one on Memorial Day and one on Labor Day. This event was an awesome one! We had 168 entries (126 qualifying entries & 42 economy parlay entries), 44 cashers, a 1 in 3.8 cash ratio and paid out over $10,000.00 in main and side event prizefund. The pattern we used was the 42ft Stars and Stripes oil pattern that we designed specifically for this event. The pattern proved to be one of the higher scoring patterns we have ever used for any of our major events. The cut scores all weekend were typically around +110 to +130. Since the handicap system is based on 90% of 225, this means most people making the cut were bowling about 20 pins over average per game. It definitely appeared that the players that were comfortable hooking it a little bit more matched up a little bit better this weekend. For the first time in awhile, it also looked a bit tougher for the lefties than the righties also. However, there were still some lefties that had some success.
We got to meet a lot of new people at this event! Johnathan Hill, Michelle Dragon, Michael Dragon, Kelly Pretlove, Harroll Washington, Shaine Cardassi, Terry Adolph, Don Kneifel, and Paul Williams were all new members of the SFT AHT family! We hope you all had a great time at your first event, and are happy that a Major event got to be your first! Speaking of firsts, we had quite a few bowlers that either bowled in their very first quarter finals this weekend, or just made their first quarter finals in quite some time! Congrats to Mike Curran, Val Caron, Theo Douthit, Jon Celery, Lanndyn Carnate, Larry Smith, Joey Burruel, Michelle Krueger and Dennis Krahn on their success this weekend! Also congrats to our parlay power players, Brian Waugh, Ernie Mendoza, Phil Hannah, Jon Celery, and Landyn Carante. We are always excited to meet new bowlers, see new bowlers finding success and have players making money off of the affordable economy parlay option!
The other exciting part of our Major events are all of the side events. We always have so many brackets, high game pots and other things. This weekend we had over 150 brackets, our $300 guaranteed first place in the mega sweeper, and $1,500.00 in guaranteed side pots. While there was over $4,000.00 paid out to a large variety of bowlers, there was one bowler in particular that really was on fire this weekend. He was in a slump for the last couple months, bowling quite a few events and not being able to make the cut, but this weekend was his redemption. That bowler was Ernie Mendoza, and he not only won a few of our guaranteed side pots, but he also won our mega sweeper and had some pretty impressive bracket squads. Great bowling Ernie!
The quarter finals really proved to be the best of the best for the weekend. All of the players that really matched up the best and were scoring the best all collided for some pretty high scoring to get to the semi-final matches. Each division cut to the top 4 players. The top 4 in the A division were #1 seed Ron Schloss, #2 seed Joey Burrell, #3 seed Brian Waugh, and #4 seed Ron Gonzales. Schloss defeated Gonzales in thier match and Burrell defeated Waugh. Schloss and Burrell came out firing at each other in their match for the A division title, but Schloss couldn't keep up. After a few strikes a split, combined with Joey's continued striking gave Joey a spot in the $1,500.00 title match.
The B division top four were #1 seed Ernie Mendoza, #2 seed Larry Smith, #3 seed Val Caron and #4 seed Josh Anthony. Ernie seemed like a clear favorite to win it all, but as they say, anything can happen in a one game match. Sure enough, it did. Ernie missed a single pin spare in the 9th frame which ended up allowing Josh to win the match by a very narrow margin. Val and Larry had a nail biter, that went back and forth, but a Larry was able to edge Val out to bowl for the B division title. Larry bowled one of his lowest games of the event in his match against Josh, which allowed Josh to go from barely in the semi-finals to a smooth cruise to the $1,500.00 title match.
The C division top four were #1 seed Dennis Krahn, #2 seed Chuck Lucas, #3 seed Jon Celery, and #4 seed Ben Dewberry.
Dennis made fairly quick work of Dewberry, but Celery and Lucas was a very close one. Jon needed to mark in the 10th to win his match, which isn't automatic for C Division bowlers. Jon was able to do it, to seal his shot in the division finals. This was another back and forth match, but Jon was able to stay out of trouble enough and convert his spares to defeat Dennis and get his chance to bowl for the $1,500.00 first place prize!
This meant that all three players in the final match were bowling for their very first SFT AHT title. The final match was back and forth, with none of the players really doing very well. It was a pretty low scoring match, maybe due to the pressure. Joey and Jon had open frames here and there, but Josh was able to convert all of his spares which was the difference maker. This meant that Josh's very first SFT AHT title would be a major one, which we were happy for him since he had been the bridesmaid a few times already! Congrats Josh, great bowling!
We look forward to seeing everyone at our next event at AMF Christown Lanes on Sunday May 31st!
