We had another great event this weekend at AMF Squaw Peak Lanes. In the main event we had 68 entries, 19 cashers, a 1 in 3.5 cash ratio, and over $2,800.00 paid out. In our side events, we had another 31 sweeper entries, and when combined with our high game pots, the side events paid out another $755.00. We are slowly coming to a close to this season with only a handful of events left. I want to take this time to thank the members that have gotten us where we are now. Not only have you allowed us to remain consistent with the same format and initial guarantees, but you have helped us to expand even further! We started off with only 1st being guaranteed, and because of you, we now offer guaranteed 2nd place amounts, guaranteed side pots and our season point race was able to expand from 3 spots to 27! This season has been great, and I think we are all excited to see how it will end, and what the 2013 season has in store.
Alright back to this weekend’s results. This event had to be the lowest or pretty darn close the lowest scoring event we have ever had. The lanes were VERY DIFFICULT! It was a very big change from the easier conditions that a lot of the bowlers saw at AMF Desert Hills two weekends ago. We bowled on a 43ft sport pattern called Dead Man’s Curve this weekend, which allowed bowlers to play any angle, but no angle really yielded a lot of strikes. At this event our club was nick named “Spare Force” instead of Strike Force, as bowling your average allowed you to easily make the cut. The transition throughout the day didn’t change much of anything. The pattern held up very well throughout the whole day.
We had a lot of new members that came out to join us for their first event ever. I want to take the time to welcome them all! Dave Nelson, Barbara Tafoya, Melissa Tafoya, Kyle Cook, Wes Buckles, Howard Strause and Eric Diana welcome to the SFT AHT family; I hope you all enjoyed yourself. There were two new members that came out and made it to the quarters in their first try, Wes Buckles and Howard Stause. That isn’t done very often, so congrats to both of you! Also, congrats to the Strauses, Howard and his wife Shawna, for being one of very few married couples to both make the quarter finals at the same event. Very impressive and very cool!
The quarter finals were very interesting, especially in the B division. The two bowlers that were leading for most of the quarter finals ended up having real bad last games, and two bowlers mid pack stayed the course to jump them all and sneak into the semi’s. Those B division bowlers were Lynn Arthur and Ryan Staudinger. The A division had former titlist Ron Gonzales squaring off against Steve Convirs who not only had the hot hand going into the quarters, but was looking for his first title before moving out of town.
Both matches for the division championships were close the first half and didn’t involve a lot of striking. It was clear that striking when the pressure wasn’t on was hard. Now that the pressure was on, it was most definitely about staying out of trouble and making spares. The A division champion was Steve Convirs who defeated Ron Gonzales 178 to 159. Lynn Arthur came out as the B division champion defeating Ryan Staudinger 237 to 205.
This created an interesting matchup for the finals as Steve Convirs for most of the day had the hot hand and was bowling really well. However, he had just bowled a terrible game in his previous match compared to how he had been scoring. On the other hand, Lynn never really appeared to be consistently bowling well, but he never got himself into a lot trouble, and always had atleast one game that gave him just enough to continue on. When you added all of that to the fact that this was Steve’s first title match ever, and Lynn’s 3rd, it was clear it was going to be interesting. Would Steve get his first title, or would Lynn keep his undefeated streak in final matches alive?
The match started off even, with Lynn fishing around for a shot, staying clean and Steve leaving 10 pins here and there to stay clean. It wasn’t until the middle of the game where Lynn had a couple of opens and Steve threw a huge double to really take the match. Lynn tried to get some momentum going but couldn’t find the ball reaction he was looking for. This left Steve Convirs as our champion, and $1,000 winner. Lynn Arthur took home $500 and has an even firmer grip on a very deserving Player of the Year performance so far this season. However, there are still events left in the Player of the Year point’s race and the next big events are coming this weekend at AMF Union Hills. This Thanksgiving Day Mega Weekend is something that you guys don’t want to miss. If you want more info on it you can click here. We look forward to seeing you all there, and thank those that came out to this event to join us! We hope you all have a happy and fulfilling Thanksgiving!
