Well another fun and successful weekend with the Strike Force Tour family. There were nearly 50 members that made up 85 total entries, 25 non-exempt cashers, 1 in 3.4 cash ratio and over $3,600 paid out! The side action had another 18 entries in the sweeper and when combined with the high game pots paid out a total of $480.00. We always want to thank all of you that come out and make these events such a success. The 2013 season so far has kicked off to an amazing start and there is a lot of excitement around the point races and huge guaranteed payouts!
The pattern for this event was the 35ft Bejing pattern. We haven’t used patterns this short much at all because the patterns got to dry by the time we got to the quarter finals. Now that we re-oil before the quarter finals we are able to use these shorter patterns more often. An interesting aspect to this pattern was that it was the same length as the pattern we used at Brunswick Kyrene. Although they were similar in this area, they were very different in other areas. The way the lanes broke down throughout the day and how players attacked them were very different. That was evident in the scoring pace difference between Brunswick Kyrene and this event. Kyrene was much higher with most cuts being around +100, and this weekend at Squaw peak the cuts were all much lower.
As always before I get into story lines and the semi-final matches, I would like to recognize a few “firsts”. The first is the list of first time bowlers with the SFT AHT. I would like to welcome Lena Norris, Jonathan Ferrell, Eddie Salsido, Debra Etem, Dave Rathert, Len Griehs, and Dave Couture to the Strike Force Tour community. I hope you all had a great time at your first event. We look forward to seeing you all again at future events. Also, a quick congrats to Zach Simon, Dylan Taylor and Chris Wheat who all showed the power the parlay by advancing all the way to the quarters off of a small $25 Economy Parlay. Congrats guys!
Alright, now let’s get to the semi’s…………..The semi-finals had 3 players in the A division, and 4 players in the B division. The 3 players in the A division would square off in a 1 game match to determine the A division champion. The 4 players in the B division would bowl a seeded match play bracket to determine the B division champion.
The A division semi-final match was between Ron Gonzales, Zach Simon and Billy Pretlove. Zach and Billy were both looking for their first SFT AHT titles. Ron however was looking for his second and was also looking to keep his economy parlay record unmatched. Ron is the only bowler to turn $25 into $1,000 with our economy parlay feature. Zach Simon was one match away from being able to do the same exact feat and put his name next to Ron’s in the record books. It was clear early on that Ron didn’t have enough to protect his record, and Billy didn’t have enough to make his first title match appearance. Zach won his match easily with a huge 266 game. This meant Zach, who had only paid $25 was now taking home a minimum of $500!
The B division semi-finals were bowled in two matches. The first round was between #1 seed Joe Claspell and #4 seed Lynn Arthur. The other match was between #2 seed Joey Kolenc and #3 seed Rick Williams. Joe Claspell defeated Lynn Arthur 247 to 184 and Rick Williams went big time and defeated Joey 288 to 231. This meant the B division final match would come down between two bowlers that were both bowling in their first ever SFT AHT semi-finals. Rick could never get enough momentum going and Joe won the match pretty easily 248 to 194. This meant Joe would be taking on Zach Simon for the $1,000 first place prize!
There were two big story lines; the first one was obviously that Zach Simon was shooting to tie the Economy Parlay record. The other was that Joe Claspell was in the hunt for rookie of the year, and is so determined that he is willing to drive from Lake Havasu City to get the job done! Well it was clear very early into the match that Joe made the trip well worth it in his 3rd event with the SFT AHT. He defeated Zach 247 to 177 to take home $1,000, the big check, bragging rights, a big lead in the rookie of the year race and he is now even among the top players leading for player of the year honors. Although Zach’s run had come to an end, he was still very happy that he was able to turn $25 into $500 and his first title match appearance with the POWER OF THE PARLAY! Congrats to both of you guys!
We look forward to seeing you all at our next event at AMF McRay plaza lanes. It will be our SUPER BOWL Baker Doubles. It will be an incredibly fun format. If you have never bowled this format before then I suggest you come try it out. Plus we are going to be running a special for this event that we are ANNOUNCING FOR THE FIRST TIME RIGHT NOW! You know how you get extra tickets for wearing SFT apparel? Well for the Super Bowl Baker Doubles we are extending the type of apparel that gets you tickets to celebrate the occasion of the big game. If you wear any football oriented apparel, you get extra tickets too! Bring your jerseys, hats, socks, t-shirts and even under garments to get your extra raffle tickets! We don’t normally raffle off bowling balls for our fun force formats but for this event we are going to and we plan on having some fun with it! See you all there!
P.S – Ok, I have to tell this side story, because it was hilarious. Danny Del Llano, who is a lane monitor for us from time to time, had a bit of an incident. This weekend the best way of handling the many dead woods that AMF Squaw Peak provided was just throwing a ball into the gutter to slide the pin to the back. Well Danny was bowling during competition, and accidentally threw the ball in the gutter when he was actually trying :-/. No big deal, it happens sometimes, right? Well on his next ball, he throws a great shot to bounce back, leaves a solid 9 pin and a messenger misses the 9 pin and lands in the gutter as a dead wood. Danny, knowing how to handle this went and grabbed a ball to get the dead wood. Well after throwing the ball in the gutter when he was trying not to, he then completely misses the gutter when he is trying to! LOL! We all had a good laugh at his expense which luckily he didn’t have a problem with! You know we love you Danny! Thanks for the memory!
