Well our final major of the 2017 season didn’t disappoint! We were only a few entries away from our all time record, but did set some records in most entries ever in the 3 day sweeper and most amount of bowlers making their first ever quarter finals. The event had 247 total entries (149 qualifying – 98 economy parlay), had 66 prize winners, a 1 in 3.74 cash ratio and paid out just under $20,000.00 in main and side event prize fund!
The players bowled on a very tough 39ft Stars and Stripes oil pattern that played longer than expected. It allowed players to play different parts of the lane, but you did have to go straight regardless of the part of the lane. Saturday and Sunday the third squad had the highest scores by a significant number, which had many of the advancers coming off squad three. That was the case, until Monday, after Craig announced to everyone that the scores had be higher squad 3, then squad 3 was the lowest squad. For the weekend, the average cut scores were around 30-50 over, which is bowling slightly over average.
We also want to welcome a ton of new bowlers who joined us for their first ever SFT AHT event this weekend! Antonios Halkiadakis, Shane Fisher, Karissa Hart, Christian Brown, Casey Schierholz, Gary Warner, Jarrod Scents, Andrew Hall, Kevin Matyskiel, Shannon Ryan, Dusty Duffield, and Tony Valente all joined us for their first ever event this weekend! We hope you all had a great time and enjoyed yourselves. A special congrats to Antonios, Karissa and Dusty from the new bowlers to also make it to the quarter finals in their first ever event! As you can tell from the long list of new bowlers, with only 3 doing it, it’s not easy to do. Of all of the new bowlers, Dusty, an impressive 83 year old man from Salt Lake City, Utah went the furthest out of all of the new bowlers going all the way to the divisional finals. He was an example that anyone can compete, and a great example of how far around the map our SFT AHT family is growing.
This event also has A TON of side events in brackets, mystery score, high game pots and 3-day sweeper. We had Steve Convirs, Steve Convirs, Jason Tunay, Brian Jackson, Tom Large, Stacie Huglin, Ben Wacks, Ron Gonzales, and Lynn Arthur all win $100 per game side pots. Then Charlie Price, Lynn Arthur and Jason Tunay all took home the big $200 per game side pots. We also had Azusena Munoz win $500 from Momma’s Mystery Score with 165 and Derek Hamm won $365 as well! Lastly, our 3-day sweeper at an all time high 99 entries and the full standings can be found here. Congrats to Brian Jackson on winning that for $300! We had a total of almost $10,000.00 in side event payouts including brackets, sweeper, side pots and mystery score!
The quarter finals was a big one as always. The three days of qualifying always leads to a lot of quarter finalists and some exciting finishes. We had 43 quarterfinalists square off, which consisted of 14 bowlers in A division, 14 in B and 15 in . C. The scores were pretty low with most of the advancers not even needing to bowl average. It was pretty clear that the lanes were getting tougher and tougher each day and the quarter finals was the toughest the pattern had played all weekend. In the A division we had a 9th and 10th frame roll off, which wasn’t a first for us, but let’s just say it ended up becoming a SFT AHT first. It was between Shawn Kearney and Ben Wacks who tied for the last spot in the A division semi-finals at +18. Ben started the match with a spare. Shawn started off rocky with a PBA washout, but made it. Then he threw a decent shot in the 10th but caught a bad break leaving the 6-8, got one pin leaving him at a score of 28. Ben, on a spare just needed 9 pins to win, or a mark. He tugged it a bit leaving a 4-6 split and got one of them to also bowl 28 and since both players have the same handicap, this meant another 9th and 10th frame roll off. Again, Shawn elected to have Ben start the match and Ben started off with a mark. Shawn then started off with an open, threw a strike in the 10th and then left the 2,4,7, 10 and converted it to force Ben to mark. Ben through a decent shot to leave the 6 pin and only needed to convert it to win. He leaked it a bit right and the ball just barely missed the pin to the right giving Shawn the dramatic win.
This put Charlie Price vs Shawn Kearney and Dylan Taylor vs Ron Gonzales in the A division. In the B division, it was Bill Brackett vs Kevin Convirs and Eric Flick vs Brooke Carroll. In the C division, since there were 15 quarter finalists, the 1 in 3 ratio advanced 5 bowlers instead of 4. Per our rule book, with 5 semi-finalists, all 5 bowl on one pair with the top 2 scores advancing. The players bowling in that match were Derek Hamm, Josh black, Michael Killgore, Eric Carroll, and Dusty Duffield. In the A division Charlie defeated Shawn and Dylan defeated Ron. In The B division, Kevin Convirs defeated Bill Brackett and Brooke Carroll won against Eric. In The C division it was a close one but Eric Carroll and Derek Hamm advanced to the next round. In the next round of the semi-finals, it was another one game match, heads up. Dylan decided to pick the pair that Charlie just came off of, because Charlie struggled on it, which seemed to of back fired, as Charlie was able to defeat him to be the A division champion. Eric and Derek had a knock out, drag out fight with both players bowling good games, but Eric bowling a bit higher with a nice 242 with handicap to defeat Derek. In the B division, Brooke Carroll and Kevin Convirs went back and forth, but a late open by Brooke gave Kevin an opening and he didn’t give it back filling his remaining frames to take home the win against Brooke.
In this major, we use a step ladder finals format, with seeding based on quarterfinals pinfall. This meant that Charlie Price would be be the #1 seed and guaranteed a minimum of $800. The first match was between Eric Carroll and Kevin Convirs, in which Eric got off to an early lead and was able to maintain it, defeating Kevin. The final match however, didn’t go as well for him. Even though Charlie hadn’t bowled on the pair, he came out firing, making a lot of good shots and converting any spares he left. This gave him a comfortable lead that Eric chipped away at at times, but was never able to overcome. This gave Charlie his 4th SFT AHT title, his first major and $1,500.00! Not to mention a huge boost in the season points races!
Thanks to all of the bowlers for making this weekend such a successful one. Thanks to Liz and Daniel for doing an incredible job all weekend with keeping the squads and check in lines running on time. It was a great weekend, a lot of fun and we look forward to our next event at Brunswick Desert Sky lanes on 9/16, which will be our first Saturday standard event in a little while. See you all there!
