Lakeview Lanes - 8/5/2018

Location: 

Our event this weekend was at the beautiful Lakeview Lanes in Sun City. Many competitive bowlers in the valley have never bowled at this center because of it being located further away and in a retirement community. Because the nature of this center is to be an ammenity for the retired community, the prices are low, food is great and service is top notch. They always keep the establishment well kept and well staffed. We were worried about a lower turn out because of "Bowler Day" at the Diamondbacks game and because Lakeview is so far away for most. Well, the opposite happened! We had one of our best turnouts for a two squad event! We had 78 total entries through two squads, which is almost 40 bowlers per squad! Of that 78, 58 were qualifying entries, we had 22 cashers a 1 in 3.5 cash ratio and paid out over $3,000.00 in main and side event prize fund. 

The players bowled on a very difficult 40ft sphinx oil pattern that had a lot of friction at the beginning, but as it was bowled on more, created less and less movement down lane. The scores were pretty low all day with cut scores averaging in the +30 to +50 range which meant players had to bowl 5-10 over average per game. It appeared that the pattern played similiar to a US open like pattern that is very flat and required a high level of shot making. Most of the players either played straighter around 2nd arrow or they were inside swinging it quite a bit, but not too many bowlers had success left of the 2nd arrow unless they were really pointing the ball.

The quarter finals was still low scoring even though they weren't on fresh conditions. Normally the quarter finals are on fresh conditions, but they weren't this time because the event was just a two squad event instead of 3, in which we don't re-oil. The quarter finals had some exciting finishes in A and B divisions. In the A division, there was a race between Andy Hakiel and Mike Barcus for the last spot in the A division finals. Mike had a low game 1 that he was trying to climb back from, but Andy was able to hold him off by bowling a nice 216 in game 3. This meant that Andy would take on Charlie Price for the A division title match. In the B division, there was a race between Andre Murillo and Mike Killgore for the last spot. Andre didn't know how close he was and put too much pressre on himself to strike more and it ended up maybe being the difference maker, as Mike Killgore snuck by him by only 4 pins. This meant Mike would take on Lynn Arthur in the B division final match. The C division finals would be between new comer Brian Richardson and SFT veteran Logan Spencer.

The A division final match was a close one, going all the way to the 10th frame. Charlie Price was throwing the most strikes, but also was really struggling with making his 10 pins. It came down to the 10th frame, where Charlie caught a break to get the first strike, but then took advantage of that break with a great shot to really put the pressure on Andy. Andy had to strike out to win, and his first shot got away from him a bit leaving the 2-8 and giving Charlie the win! In the B division final match Lynn got off to the lead quickly and never looked back beating Mike pretty easily. In the C division final match, it was another match that wasn't super close with Brian Richardson staying hot and catching Logan at the right time with Logan bowling one of his lowest scores on the day.

The final match started off with Charlie and Brian both on fire. Charlie, having the low handicap with a lot of strikes and Brian with the most handicap makign his spares and keeping it in play. Charlie had pretty much overcame the handicap but a missed 10 pin again in the 6th which gave the lead back to Brian.  Brian opened in the 9th, by chopping the 6-10, he was able to stay clean the rest of the way to take home the win and earn his first ever SFT AHT title!