Our annual invitational was an exciting one yet again. 24 players squared off in a double elimination match play format with the top 1 in 3 cashing, and the top 2 taking home event exemptions. The players bowled on a pretty tough 40ft Kegel Highway to Hell oil pattern. The pattern was pretty demanding all day with spares being the huge difference between most of the matches. The format of this event gave byes to the top 8 players invited which last year, proved to be a huge advantage.
This year we had a player win the winner's bracket and bowl every game of the winner's bracket with no byes. It's also kind of ironic that his last name is Brackett. Bill Brackett slowly won his way to the very final match defeating one oppoenet at a time to lock his spot into the final match as the winner of the winner's bracket. Bill defeated Billy Pretlove in his final match which sent Billy to the final match in the loser's bracket. Billy went the furthest in the winner's bracket of all of the players that recieved byes.
The loser's bracket, with a few rounds to go had, Bo Copeland squaring off against Brian Cail, and Stacie Huglin vs Ted McKay.Bo defeated Phil Thompson earlier in the tournament in an exciting 9th and 10th frame roll off because they tied in their 1 game match. Bo made a huge come back at the end of his match but a missed 10 pin in the 10th frame allowed Brian to sneak through to the next round. Ted and Stacie played hot potatoe with no one really taking the match from the other person. Ted was able to sneak out a win by just a few pins at the very end. This meant that the winner between Ted and Brian would take on Billy to claim the champion of the loser's bracket. It also meant that we had an all senior final in an event that has a very long and grueling format. Brian at this point in time had bowled the most amount of games with a total of 8 games and 50 minutes of practice. The four seniors reminded us that age is just a mindset!
Ted bowled a huge game in his match against Brian which really got him going for his final two matches. Ted was able to defeat Billy pretty easily and moved on to the final match to bowl against Bill Brackett. Bill send Ted to the loser's bracket earlier in the event and this was Ted's shot at getting event. However, he would have to be Bill two times in order to claim victory since he was coming out of the loser's bracket. Ted said that he actually changed his strategy for playing the lanes after being defeated by Bill. Bill used a more aggressive ball and moved left to defeat Ted. Ted had switched to the same strategy after his loss and was defeating people ever since.
The first game wasn't very close with Ted defeating Bill 260 to 215 with handicap. However, Bill is a great match play bowler and knew that it wasn't two game total pin fall. His 50+ pin defeat didn't mean anything if he could beat Ted in the final game. The final game of the tournament was much closer then the last. Ted opened in the 8th and 9th frames. One frame was an easy spare and the other was a split. It was clear that both guys were really running out of gas. Ted finished his game first and finished with a score of 207 with handicap. Bill only needed a mark to win the game and claim his MI title. Bill's first shot sailed a bit to the right leaving the 1,2,4,7. This spare wasn't the easiest and Bill showed one of the many ways to miss it. His spare shot was a little too straight and he chopped off the 1,2 leaving the 4,7. This open frame meant that Ted McKay was our 2013 matchplay invitational champion! Click below for the full bracket break down.
