We had our event at AMF McRay this weekend and had a great turn out for a Saturday event! We had 107 total entries (73 qualifying entries & 34 economy parlay entries), 29 total cashers, a 1 in 3.68 cash ratio and paid out over $5,000.00 in main and side event prize fund. The players bowled on the newest version of the PBA Cheetah oil pattern that is 33ft instead of the traditional 35ft length. It is also flatter than before and it showed in the scores. This was the first event in quite some time that had cut scores and parlay winners that were minus. That means you could bowl well below your average and still cash or advance! That doesn’t happen too often.
We also had a lot of new bowlers try out the Strike Force Tour for the first time this weekend. Michael Boley, Julian Novak, Zach Herda, Chris Allen, Jason Stygar, and Lonnie Shane were all first-time bowlers this weekend! It’s awesome to still have so many new faces at each event! Congrats to Michael Boley on being a new bowler but making it to the quarter finals in his first event! Nice job! Also congrats to Nicole Smyth on being our only Parlay Power player this weekend, turning her $25 entry into a nice quarter finals check!
The quarter finals had fairly low scoring as well, taking an average of +43 to advance to the semi-final. What happened in the quarter finals that also happened in qualifying is that certain players really matched up and bowled head and shoulders above the rest of the field. This seems to happen often on the short oil patterns. The short oil patterns require players to be very comfortable playing very far right on the lane and a lot of the times, the further right you can get, even if it requires you throwing it harder, the better your overall reaction can get. So, very often, there are players that can play a part of the lane that the other players in their division can’t do, and they are able to score significantly higher because of it. It’s not always the case, but is pretty common.
The quarter finals left Chase Nadeau vs Carlos Vejar in the A division finals. Michael Dragon and Michael Killgore in the B division finals and Ryan Riley and Elizabeth Randall in the C division finals. This was one of the few cases where every semi-final match was really not close at all. Chase, Michael Dragon and Ryan Riley won their matches by a combined 200+ pins.
The final match looked like it was going to be a high scoring one with all three players being a combined +571 for their 12 game total. However, the final match is always a different environment with more pressure on the line, especially when the first place prize is $1,000.00! The match started off with everyone in the hunt, no one striking much and not too many opens by anyone. However, but the middle to end of the game Michael Dragon had too many opens and fell behind and it would come down between Chase and Ryan. Ryan getting the more pins kept making spares and grinding and Chase was never able to put strikes together to be able to catch him. This gave Ryan Riley his 2nd SFT AHT title and $1,000.00!
