Our Thanksgiving Day week and weekend tournaments were a bunch of fun as usual! We held two events during the holiday week and weekend. There was a Black Friday fun event that featured the Baker Trios format. This was the first time we had ever used this format and one thing is for sure…. It won’t be the last! It was a blast! We had over 60 bowlers come out generating 25 teams and just under a $1,000.00 in prize fund! Not too bad for a tournament that only cost $20 per person!
The winners of the event ended up being Ben Dewberry, Zack Huglin and Wes Marema. The funny thing was that they were hoot’n and holler’n while slapping out strikes and taking the lead with only 3 games of bowling. Going into their last game, they were thinking they just needed to stay out of trouble. Little did they know, the quiet and sneaky team of Jonathan Ferrell, Chris Huglin and Tony Masterson nearly passed them. They missed them by just a few pins to finish in 2nd.
Our other event was the BIG ONE. The Thanksgiving Day $1,000.00 Championship which was also at Brunswick Via Linda Lanes. The event drew 90 entries, had a 1 in 3.8 cash ratio and paid out over $5,000.00 in main and side event prize fund. This event had all kinds of story lines wrapped up in it! First off, you should know that the event was bowled on the 40ft Kegel Highway to Hell oil pattern. The pattern proved to hook a pretty good amount, more than most of the players expected. It seemed like the bowling center itself hooked quite a bit.
As always we want to welcome all of the new members that joined us for this event! Ricky Smith, John Cooper, Nicholaus Smith, Cornell Hart, and Robert Gonzales welcome to the SFT AHT family! We hope you all had a good time and we look forward to seeing you at your next SFT AHT event. Also congrats to Nick Milho on making it to his first ever quarter finals this weekend and to Chuck Kremer, Joe Mascio and Phil Thompson for showing the power of the parlay! This means they bowled in the economy parlay and rode the parlay all the way to the quarter finals! Chuck even rode it all the way to the semi-finals! Congrats guys! Good bowling!
We set a new record at this event for the MOST money ever paid out by Momma’s Mystery Score. We had 3 winners this weekend, and what makes it even better is that their three winning scores combined, add up to a whopping 538 series, yet they took home a combined $1,100.00 from a combined $15 investment! That is right, Ben Dewberry won $100 for a 201 game, Ben Spencer won $500 for a score of 187 and Nick Milho won $500 for a score of 150! There was no doubt that Momma was in full effect this weekend, giving out money for scores that weren’t the best, but it was a lot of fun!
Our quarter finals were very tight, with the last spot in the A division being decided by 2 pins and the last spot in the B division by 1 pin. The A division had #1 seed Mike Bohe, #2 seed Joe Claspell, and #3 seed Ben Dewberry. B division would be decided by #1 seed Brian Cail, #2 seed Chuck Kremer, and #3 seed Chuck Lucas. Before I get into the results of the semi-finals, I have to tell you the story line for all of these bowlers. It’s not often that every bowler in the semi-finals has quite the storyline accompanying them.
Mike Bohe – Mike bowled a huge 685 scratch series to be the #1 seed in his division. Via Linda is his home house and it’s always a story line when you have a “local” so close to the title since it would give them supreme bragging rights in that center for quite a while.
Joe Claspell – Joe had a commanding lead in our player of the year race but a relocation and injury took him out for a majority of the season. This put him out of contention for the player of the year race but he was still very much alive for the rookie of the year race. A win would put him ahead of Joe Mascio the current rookie of the year point’s leader
Ben Dewberry – Dewberry was looking for his 2nd title but more importantly a win would put him only a handful of points behind Dylan Taylor for the player of the year race. If he was to win, it would put him, Dylan and Ron Gonzales in a heated race going into the last event of the 2013 season.
Brian Cail – Brian had a lot of mojo in his corner for this one. Not only was Via Linda his home house like Mike, but he is also the defending Thanksgiving Day champion. He won at AMF Union Hills in 2012 for our Thanksgiving Day event. This title propelled him into being the first player ever to win back to back SFT AHT title because he won at Glenfair lanes the very next event.
Chuck Kremer – Our current economy parlay record was held by Ron Gonzales who turned $25 into $1000. Chuck had the chance of matching that record as he had parlayed himself all the way to the semis. The true irony would be that Ron achieved that feat in the same exact bowling center the last time we were there.
Chuck Lucas – Believe it or not, Chuck had the least amount of “story line” going for him. Chuck has bowled a few times with the club and had success at times but nothing huge. He would be looking for his first title in his first ever title match.
In the A division semi’s it wasn’t very close. Ben Dewberry started striking from the start and although he split in the middle, there weren’t any players really putting enough pressure on him to make him budge, so he got back on the strike train and finished out the match. The B division semis however were a close one. None of the players really threw consecutive good shots early on, and the players that made their spares and stayed clean were Chuck Kremer and Chuck Lucas. This kept them close but, Chuck had to double at some point in time to compensate for the difference in handicap. Chuck threw a good shot in the 10th but left a 10 pin which cut his record matching run short.
This put Ben Dewberry with experience and a lot on the line against Chuck Lucas who has never bowled for this kind of money before and had 0 stake in any of the point races. Who would win?
Although it seemed like Ben was really finding his rhythm, he had an errand shot in the 2nd frame where he missed quite a bit to the right. It seemed like after this shot he could never get back to making the same quality of shots he was making in previous rounds. Chuck took advantage and made a couple good shots to put together his first double, and then a pair of Brooklyn’s pretty much sealed the deal. Chuck Lucas would go on to win his first ever SFT AHT title and $1,000.00! Congrats to both of you guys!
Thanks to everyone that came out this weekend and made the even so much fun. We only have one more event of the 2013 season! It should be a fun one! Still a lot of things to be determined, the point races are far from over! We will see you all there!
(Our 2013 season ending meeting, banquet and invitational are coming up soon as well. You will see more information for them in the coming weeks. There has been a forum created by the members for the members to discuss potential changes for the 2014 season. You don’t have to have an account to post in the forum.
