This weekend we made a trip down south to Cotton Bowl Lanes in Casa Grande, AZ for a 2-day event. Since Tawna always comes up to us every other weekend, we thought we would give her a break and come down to visit her! We had a nice turnout, for a 12-lane bowling center, as we would have 81 total entries (61 qualifying and 20 economy parlays) paying out over $4,800 in main and side event prize funds. The bowlers played on the very tough 40ft 2022 USBC Master’s oil pattern. The pattern made it hard to control the backends on the fresh and would calm down once there was some carry down as the pattern started to break down. It also allowed for bowlers to play a variety of angles and you could see as the lanes played differently from pair to pair. The average score to make the quarterfinals was around +30 which meant you only had a get a few pins over your average to advance. That was easier said than done.
We would like to welcome Chance Bruno, Marisol Quinones, Justin O’Donnell, Ricky Salazar, Wendy Lloyd and Lauren Giesecke to the AHT SFT family! They all bowled their first event this weekend and we hope you enjoyed it! Congrats to Ricky Salazar and Lauren Giesecke on making the quarterfinals in their very first event! Also, we did have a couple of Economy Power Players this weekend with Jason Lowery and Josh Brown turning their $30 parlay entry into a quarterfinals check. We did have a few bowlers that made their first quarterfinals or their first quarterfinals in a while in Russell Neiger, Horace Paul, Sonny James, Ted McKay, Rayland Hughes, Marquise Rodgers and Chad Clapp. There were no Momma’s Mystery Score winners this weekend so that pot will roll over to the first squad of our 3-day Memorial Day Major at Glenfair Lanes. Your winner of the free plastic ball raffle, with an option to upgrade to any Track high-performance bowling ball for $85.00, was Rayden Hughes.
Since this was a 2-day event the quarterfinals would be bowled on the fresh oil pattern. This would keep scores low, and it looked like it would all come down to the third game in the quarterfinals to determine who would advance to the next round. We would have 26 quarterfinalists from Saturday & Sunday, and with our 1 in 3 cut ratio, we would advance the Top 2 bowlers in the A Division and the Top 3 bowlers in the B & C Divisions.
The A Division would see Michael Dragon (+46) emerge as the #1 seed and he would have to face off with Garret Strehl (+10). The B Division leader would be Mike Umstead (+52) and he would have to take on Eddie Thompson (+21) and Dan Friedline (+19). The C Division Top 3 would be #1 seed Ricky Salazar (+30) and he would go against Josh Umstead (+25) and SFT rookie Lauren Giesecke (-6).
The A Division semi-final match would see Michael Dragon get out to an early lead as Garret Strehl would take a few frames to get lined up on the pair. Once Garret got lined up, he would start to string strikes along and Dragon could not keep up with Garret. Key moment of the match would be the ninth frame as Dragon would chop off the 3-6-10 spare attempt and finish the match with a score of 196. Garret would stay in the zone as he would finish with a huge 245 game to advance to the Finals.
The B Division semi-finals would be a grinder of a match with all three bowlers struggling on the pair. It would come down to the tenth frame to determine who would advance to the Finals. Eddie Thompson would finish out the match first with a score of 173. Mike Umstead would be up next, and he would just need a mark and good count to shut out Dan Friedline. Mike’s first ball in the tenth would just go a bit long and leave the super washout (1-2-4-10) and Mike was unable to convert it to finish with a score of 190. This would mean that Dan would need to mark and get count to advance. Dan would go on to mark in the tenth and get enough pins on his fill to win the match with a score of 195.
The C Division would also be another close semi-final match as all three bowlers would struggle on the pair. It would come down to another tenth frame finish to determine the winner. Josh Umstead would finish out the match with a score of 186. Lauren would be up next and would mark and get good count to finish at 202. Ricky would be up last, and he would mark and get just enough to squeak by Lauren, 204 to 202.
Going into the Finals we would see newcomer Ricky Salazar making his first Finals appearance in his very first tournament! We would also see Garret Strehl looking to add his third AHT SFT title and his first title of the season. Garret is an up-and-coming bowler and has been improving his game throughout the last couple of seasons, so it was good to see his hard work finally paying off. Standing in Garret’s way was Dan Friedline who was looking to win back-to-back tournaments. Dan had just won his first AHT SFT title last weekend at AMF Chandler and was looking to add to his resume. I’m telling you, making back-to-back Finals is no easy task and we rarely have back-to-back titlist in our club, but Dan also has been improving his game and it has all been paying off his season.
The Finals would start off with Ricky opening up with a split (4-7-10) and was unable to make the spare attempt. Dan and Garret would mark in the first frame as they looked to take advantage of making up some of the handicap difference that they were giving Ricky. Ricky would mark in the second frame as he would settle his nerves and look to get back into the match. Dan would mark and Garret would strike in their second frames. Going into the third frame Ricky would get a strike as it looked like he might be getting lined up. Dan would ring 10-pin in the third and would go on the pick it up to remain clean. Garret would also leave a 10-pin that he would convert. The fourth frame would see Ricky leave the half bucket (2-4-5) and he would pick up to stay ahead of Dan and Garret. Dan would strike in the fourth frame as he too looked to be getting lined up on the pair. Garret would strike to keep up the pace.
Midway through the match Ricky would have a slight lead with his handicap score as he would mark in the fifth. Dan would chop the 3-6-10 to open in the fifth to fall a bit behind. Garret would double in the fifth as he looked to continue to make up the handicap difference. The sixth frame we would see Ricky and Dan both leave open frames as Garret would spare a light 2-pin to get closer to taking over the lead. Ricky would spare the seventh frame to maintain a very slight lead over Garret. Dan would mark in the seventh frame and then strike in the eighth frame as he looked to get back into the match. Garret would get a crushing strike in the seventh frame as it looked like he had finally had the look he wanted. Ricky would open in the eighth as he would chop the 1-3 spare attempt. Garret would strike in the eighth and ninth frames to finally take the lead. Dan would mark in the ninth as Ricky would open to fall behind. In the tenth frame Ricky would open and finish with a score of 187. Dan would strike in the tenth and get good count on his fill attempt to just get by Ricky with a score of 199. Garret would open in the tenth frame, but it was already enough as he would finish the match with a score of 221. This would give Garret his third AHT SFT title and $600.00 first place prize! Congrats to Dan Friedline on 2nd place and $300.00. Also, congrats to Ricky Salazar on 3rd place and $150.00!
Thank you to everyone who made the trip down south to Cotton Bowl. Also, thank you to Tawna McDonald and her staff at Cotton Bowl for hosting us and providing great customer service. Thanks again to Tawna and Michael Dragon for helping the event run smoothly.
We hope to see you all in a few weeks for our 3-day Memorial Day Major at Glenfair Lanes!
Hope you all have a good week!
FINALS - Garret Strehl vs. Dan Friedline vs. Ricky Salazar
