We kicked off the 2022 season with our first event this weekend at Bowlero Kyrene and we had a great turnout with 126 entries (86 qualifying and 40 economy parlays). We had 35 cashers, a 1 in 3.6 cash ratio and paid out over $7,000.00 in main and side event prize funds. The players bowled on the 43ft Kegel Krypton oil pattern that was higher scoring for most of the day. Bowlers were able to play a variety of angles on the pattern. The cut scores stayed above +90 for most of the day, which meant that you had to bowl about 25-30 pins over your average per game to qualify.
We had some new bowlers join us for their first event and we want to welcome Randy Blocker, Andrew Ingwersen, Ashton Kroll, Heather Motteler, Chris Silva, Norman Touey, Amare Bridges and Alexandria Rose, who all bowled in their first event this weekend. We hope you all had a good time and look forward to seeing you at our next event. Also, congrats to Chris Silva for making to the quarterfinals in his very first event! Also, congrats to Garret Strehl, DJ Kneifel and Terrence Smythe for being this weekend’s Parlay Power Players. They were all able to qualify for the quarterfinals with a $25 parlay investment and Garret even made it to the Finals! Congrats to Outhay Lalab who won Momma’s Mystery Pot with a score of 188 for $30.00!! Your winner of the free plastic ball raffle, with an option to upgrade to any Track high-performance ball for $85.00, was Curtis Spence.
The quarterfinals for a 3-squad event would normally be bowled on the fresh oil pattern, but the lane machine had a different plans. Unfortunately, the lane machine would not start up, so we would have to continue on without a re-oil with all the quarterfinalist bowling on the burn. So, scores for the quarterfinals would still be high, with Chris Tucker even shooting an impressive 300 game in his 2nd game of the quarterfinals. We would have 27 quarterfinals and with our 1:3 cut to the semi-finals; we would cut to the Top 3 bowlers in each Division.
Your A Division leader would be Parlay Power Player Garret Strehl (+221) and he would have to face off with Chris Tucker (+211) and newcomer Chris Silva (+181). The B Division #1 seed would be youth bowler Ryan Doyle (+100) versus DJ Kneifel (+84) and John Verbil (+82). The C Division leader would be John Masterson (+148) and he would take on Josh Hancock (+116) and Kevin Todd (+71).
The A Division semi-final match would go back and forth with each bowler stringing strikes and trying to gain the advantage. It would come down to the ninth and tenth frame as Chris Silva would finish up with a three bagger in the tenth to finish at 219. Next up would be Chris Tucker who had made a ball change in the fifth frame and was working on a five bagger. Garret had opened in the ninth frame as he was unable to convert the 3-4-6-10 split and this meant that Chris would need to strike in the tenth for force Garret to strike out. Chris’s first shot in the tenth would look good off his hand and crush the pocket, but leave a stone 9-pin and Chris would pick up his spare and strike on his fill ball to finish at 241. Garret would need to double and get 5 pins to win. Garret’s first shot in the tenth would look good and crush the pocket. His second shot would go a bit high, but carry the pocket for a double and his last shot would again go high, but get enough pins to win the match with a score of 244.
The B Division semi-final match would also be a nail biter as DJ Kneifel and John Verbil would go back and forth throughout the match. Ryan Doyle would struggle to get lined up on the pair and would finish with a score of 208. John Verbil would struggle a bit to start the match, but would soon get lined up and throw nine strikes on his last ten balls of the match to finish at 278. DJ Kneifel would enter the tenth frame working on a four bagger and would need to double and get at least four pins to tie the match and force a ninth/tenth frame roll-off. Anything less than that would give John the win. DJ would get up for his first shot in the tenth and the ball would look good off his hand to crush the pocket but leave a ring 7-pin. DJ would spare and get nine on his fill to finish at 262.
The C Division semi-final would see all three bowlers struggle with the pair and it would come down to who could execute and string a strike or two. It would all come down the tenth frame with all three bowlers having a chance to win the match. Josh Hancock would finish up first getting nine on his first ball in the tenth, but would miss the spare to finish at 194. Next up would be John Masterson and he would get six on his first ball and then chop his spare attempt to finish at 197. Finally, we would see Kevin Todd get up and strike on his first ball in the tenth, then would double on his next shot and get sixth on his fill to win the match with a score of 204.
The Final match would feature both John Verbil and Kevin Todd looking to win their first AHT SFT title. Kevin would literally limp into the Finals as he had hurt his hip earlier in the day, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying to win his first title in his first Finals appearance. John Verbil was coming off a huge 258 game and was making his second Finals appearance and looking at making a run. Garret Strehl was looking at turning his $25 economy parlay into $1,100.00 and his 2nd AHT SFT title. Garret had been red-hot all day and would look tough to beat. Garret’s first title came at this very center only six months ago, so you could say that he was very comfortable going into the Finals!
The Final match would start off with all three bowlers trying to settle in and find the pocket. John Verbil would get us started and he would nine-spare in the first frame while Kevin Todd and Garret Strehl would also mark in the first frame. Kevin would open in the second frame as he would miss the 3-6-10 spare attempt. John would leave the dreaded 5-7 split and wouldn’t convert to drop both bowlers into a small hole. Garret would take advantage of their open frames by striking on his next four shots to make up any handicap difference that he had. John and Kevin would continue to struggle with the pair through the next few frames.
Midway through the match and it seemed that John and Kevin were bowling for second place as Garret would mark in the sixth and strike in the seventh to increase his lead. Garret would continue to mark and spare and finish out the match with a clean 229 scratch game (249 with handicap) to win the match for his 2nd AHT SFT title and the $1,100.00 first place prize! Second place would be determined between John and Kevin in the tenth frame. John would finish up with a strike and an eight-spare to finish at 206. Kevin would need to strike on the first ball in the tenth and get good count to pass John. Kevin would get his ball to hit the pocket and carry the four pin for a strike and then he would get nine-spare to finish at 212 and in second place for $640.00, giving John third place and $400.00!
Thank you to everyone who came out to support our first event of the 2022 season. We hope to see you on Sunday, January 30th at Glenfair Lanes for our 2-squad event!
FINALS - Garret Strehl vs. John Verbil vs. Kevin Todd
