This weekend’s event was at Brunswick Kyrene. The event drew 93 total entries (62 qualifying and 31 economy parlay), had 26 cashers, a 1 in 3.6 cash ratio and paid out over $4,400.00 in main and side event prize funds. The players bowled on a 39ft Seoul oil pattern that played a lot tighter on the fresh, but once the pattern broke down, scoring went through the roof. We haven’t bowled on this pattern before, but the key was to get your ball into a roll and play a little straighter along the track. Those that could do that were able to take advantage of the pattern. We saw the average cut scores for the weekend were high compared to the last few tournaments. Congrats to Mark Yakich for winning the Momma’s Mystery Score with a nice 214 game for $500.00! The winner of the free Track plastic bowling ball, with an option to upgrade to any high-performance Track ball, was Ron McDonald.
We also want to welcome some new bowlers to the SFT AHT Family from this weekend. Michael Heath, Estevan Otero, Ethan Haas and Robert Coleman all bowled in their first tournament this weekend! Estevan even made it to the quarterfinals on his first try! We hope you all enjoyed yourself, and we hope to see you again soon! There were no parlay power players this weekend as the cut scores blew up in the 3rd squad. We also want to congratulate everyone who made it to their first quarterfinals or their first quarterfinals in quite a while. Congrats to Estevan Otero, David Bishop, Andy Morin, Ernie Mendoza and Steve Convirs!
The quarterfinalist bowled on the fresh oil pattern and the cut scores were still a bit high with bowlers needing to shoot around +50 to advance to the semi-finals. In the A Division the #1 seed would be Chris Allen and he would take on Jonathan Ferrell. The B Division #1 seed would be Derek Hamm having to bowl against David Bishop. The C Division #1 seed was Steve Convirs versus Mark Yakich. The advantage of each #1 seed player is that they are able to pick the pair of lanes that they want their match to take place. Also, another advantage is that they get to choose the order of which player would start first.
The A Division semi-final match was a great match with both Chris and Jonathan striking at will. It would all come down to the final few frames and who would flinch first. In the ninth frame both players opened setting up an intense tenth frame. Jonathan would throw a strike and nine to finish at 223, meaning Chris would need to strike and get good count to advance to the Finals. Chris was able to throw three really good shots to strike and finish at 237. In the B Division Derek Hamm was unable to hold off David Bishop, who had been bowling good all day, losing 183 to 230. The C Division semi-final was won by Steve Convirs, 197 to 163, as Mark Yakich was unable to line up and find his shot on the pair of lanes that Steve had selected.
The final match would both Chris and Steve looking for their 2nd SFTAHT title and David making his first appearance in the Finals. Steve would start off the match with a spare while Chris and David would both strike. The oil pattern tended to transition quickly as the bowlers would find out. David would open in the 3rd frame with unable to convert 2-4-7-8 spare, Steve would chop the 4-8 and Chris also chopped his 2-4-8 spare attempt. They would all rebound quickly in the next frame. In the fifth frame David would miss a 3-pin spare and Steve would washout and unable to convert on the 1-2-8-10. This would give Chris a chance to jump out to a lead as he was able to strike in the 4th and 5th frames. Once he was able to take the lead, then Chris never looked back as he was able to run out the rest of the frames to finish at 224. This would give him his 2nd AHT SFT title and $970.00!!! Congrats to Steve Convirs on 2nd Place and to David Bishop on 3rd Place! Since David was not in the progressive pot, then the 3rd place progressive pot winnings redistributed among the rest of the bowlers that were in the progressive pot.
Thanks to everyone for coming out and supporting the event this weekend. We look forward to seeing you all next Sunday at Glenfair Lanes for our Standard 3-squad event! Hope you all have a great week!
