Well it was less than 9 months ago when we had our first event at AMF Tempe Village lanes. We had a little over 60 entries and it was a great start for a club under new ownership. We decide to end our 2012 season in the same place we started it and the SFT AHT family made it a very memorable one. The event this weekend drew 104 total main event entries, had 29 cashers, a 1 in 3.6 cash ratio and paid out nearly $4,000! Our side events drew another 45 entries in the sweeper and when combined with brackets, and high game pots paid out another $1,038.00! Needless to say, it was a very epic way to conclude our 2012 season and our last 2012 standard event. I know I say it a lot, but it can’t be said enough, I have to thank the SFT AHT community on how hard they have supported and spread the word to make this year what it was. I would like to thank you all one more time!
I would like to welcome some new members who joined us for this event. Kurt Gries, Joan Rowton, Daniel Kaurin, Andy Wing, Anthony Beltran, AJ Beltran, and Sean Ashley welcome to the SFT AHT family! Also a special congrats to Kurt Gries who made it all the way to the semi-finals in his first SFT AHT event ever! I know some of you bowled well and some of you didn’t but, we hope you all had a good time in your first event. I want to thank all of you for giving SFT AHT a try this weekend, and we hope it exceeded your expectations.
The bowlers this weekend bowled on a 40ft modified house shot. The pattern didn’t seem to be incredibly difficult but there were certain bowlers that matched up REALLY well and shot LIGHTS OUT! The rest of the bowlers grinded out fairly decent scores to advance to the quarter finals. The pattern played similar to a house shot on the outside part of the lane but the middle of the lane had a little less oil than a usual house shot. This meant for most of the players, they had to belly the ball a little bit. The bowlers that could get further left and really slow hook the lane seemed to have the best ball reaction. David Kurlan and Ben Dewberry had two of the highest scores of the weekend with 769 and 794 with handicap.
There were a lot of exciting story lines at this event. I can only tell you all about so many but I will pick the good ones. I will start with the semi-finals. After the quarter finals concluded our semi-finalists in each division were decided. In the A Division it was Ben Dewberry, Kurt Gries, and Kris Maglunog. B division had the exciting story line in it, mother vs. son! The B division semi-finalists were Teri Hamilton, Myles Hamilton, and Danny Del Llano. Not only was there the side story of mom taking on son, but this was a very close match also! It was a nail biter but it finished with Teri being 3rd with 226, Danny 2nd with 231 and Myles Hamilton shooting 238 to beat his mom and also bowl in his first SFT AHT title match of all time. The A division semi-final match was pretty uneventful as Ben Dewberry continued his dominance with a 263 game. Ben had actually gotten a brand new Track 300C specifically for the drier conditions which he was able to use all weekend. He dominated with the ball shooting 769 to qualify, 749 in the quarters and 263 in his semi-final match. Dewberry said it best about his new ball… “this ball is perty good”.
The final match was about to begin and there was two very clear story lines. First was Ben Dewberry’s tournament dominance which put him in his first tournament finals. There is also an incentive that allows any bowler winning the tournament with a Track ball to get any Track ball of their choice. Ben was also in contention for this free ball. The other was the fact that Myles Hamilton was not in the progressive pot. This meant that if he were to win, the $500 that he would normally get in progressive pot, would instead go to everyone below him who did get in the progressive pot. This meant that even though Dewberry had a lot of momentum in his corner, he had all of the quarterfinalists watching the match rooting for Myles because that meant their check would be higher! The odds were against Myles based on stats, but he had the composure of a real champion, not letting Ben’s high scoring pace all weekend affect his start in the match. Myles stayed clean the first half of the match and also had a double. Since Ben was spotting him 10 pins, this was a bit much for Ben to overcome early on. It was close but a late “greek church” in the 8th frame by Ben forced him to need every strike to really put any pressure on Myles at all. Ben got up in the 9th and threw a pretty good shot but left a solid 9 pin. This meant that Myles had the match pretty much locked up. Myles took home his first SFT AHT title, made about 20 new friends (quarter finalists), and won the last big check we are giving off for the 2012 season! Congrats to both of you guys! Great bowling!
Well our next event is a fun force format event before we start the 2013 season. It is Saturday December 29th at AMF Christown Lanes and will feature a Criss Cross Doubles format! This event proved to be a lot of fun last time with bounty’s for high mixed team, squad leader benefits and much more! We look forward to seeing you and your partner at that event. Until then, we send a safe and incredible holiday wish from the SFT AHT family to yours!
