Well we had an incredible weekend! We had the largest turn out we have ever had for a 6 squad tournament! In 6 squads of qualifying there were 111 entries, 29 prize winners, a 1 in 3.8 cash ratio, and over $5,824.00 paid out in main and side tournament prize fund! This was truly a great weekend for the club in a lot of ways. We got to see all of the great elements of the SFT AHT from beginning to end! I can’t way to tell you all what I am talking about!
First, as always, we have to talk about what the players bowled on this weekend. It was a 42ft modified house pattern that yielded pretty medium scoring pace. There were some straight players that did well and some players with bigger curves that did well. However, most players played the middle of the lane, as there was an out of bounds from 1st arrow to the gutter. The highest qualifying series for the entire event was only +103 and the cut scores averaged around +40 to +60.
The first great element about SFT AHT that shined through this weekend was the variety of of new members. I want to welcome Nicholas Milho, Toby Malone, Monica Flores, and Terry Fronterhouse to the SFT AHT. We have been running tournaments now for over 16 months and this was the 3rd time we have been to AMF Desert Hills. Even with that, we had a new member at this event from three completely different age generations and a new female bowler! The club’s diversity is awesome and is clearly not slowing down! Thanks to all of the new members for giving it a try and I hope to see you all at your next event!
The next great element is the element of exciting coincidence! This event had Momma’s Mystery Score won TWICE! We had two bowlers win $500 each from Momma’s Mystery Score! Dylan Taylor was the first winner of $500 with a score of 189. The other winner was Chuck Lucas who won $500 with a score of 210. The funny thing about this was that Dylan is a 205 averaged bowler, and won his money bowling almost 20 pins under average and Chuck is a 164 averaged bowler and won his money bowling almost 50 pins over average, yet both go home with $500! The event this weekend paid out over $1800.00 JUST IN SIDE ACTION!
The last great element I want to talk about is personally my favorite. To any of you that have bowled in handicap tournament clubs anywhere in the past 20 years, you all know how hard it is to keep rules in place that keep the field even and competitive. It’s never good to see any one person winning every single weekend, or seeing any new bowlers never standing a chance. The SFT AHT is very proud to announce that we had 8 bowlers bowling in their first SFT AHT quarter finals at this event, one bowler made it in their first ever event with us, and the two finalists were in their first ever title match! Not to mention that the two members both have only bowled a couple SFT AHT events prior to this one! I want to thank all of the great members out there that prove in times like this, that not everyone is out to “sandbag” and that it is possible to have a club full of bowlers that care about the integrity of bowling.
This brings us to our semi-final matches. Each division had 12 quarter finalists that bowled 3 games and were cut to the top 1 in 3 in each division. This meant the top 4 bowlers would square off in two 1 game matches. In the A division, #1 seed Lance Bentley was defeated by #4 seed William Milho, and #3 seed Terry Fronterhouse defeated #2 seed Havel Wright. Then William defeated Terry in the A division finals to move onto the final match. Check out the results below for all of the scores.
In the B division the #1 seed was Mike Nero who defeated the #4 seed Zack Huglin. The #2 seed Jeff Brackett defeated #3 seed Chuck Kremer to move on to bowl Mike in the B division finals. Jeff actually finished 2nd the last time we were at AMF Desert Hills and took home $500. Could he make back to back title matches there? Mike Nero put him to the test and he wasn’t able to defeat Mike, which meant Mike Nero would move on to bowl William Milho for the AMF Desert Hills $1,000.00 Championship!
This match was another great example of what can transpire at an SFT AHT event. We had a 210 average bowler and a 144 average bowler squaring off for the title! Again, the diversity is so much fun, and it’s because of all of the great member’s out there! William was able to get a slight lead but a couple opens set him back again, and he needed to strike out to force Mike to strike in the 10th frame. William was very clutch and showed his experience in the situation by striking out in the 10th. Mike who just started bowling a year ago, showed his experience as well, and wasn’t quite able to be as clutch William in the 10th and left a 10 pin from a Brooklyn hit to come in 2nd. Still an incredible finish by Mike to have only been bowling for a year! Great bowling to both guys and congrats on your victories!
Another great weekend in the books with great story lines as always! We look forward to seeing you all at our next event at Flip Side lanes on August 24th. Then we follow it up with our BIG LABOR DAY WEEKEND EVENT! It’s going to be a great month of bowling, see you all there!
