Location:
Well, you would think that going to one of the furthest locations from the center of the valley would deter bowlers from making the drive and competing. Not the SFT FAMILY! We had another great turn out with 86 entries, 22 cashers, a 1 in 3.9 cash ratio and paid out over $3,000.00 in our main tournament. Then our side action had another 20 sweeper entries and with high game pots paid out another $594.00. I want to thank all of the members for wanting to come out and compete with each other no matter where we are. Also, thanks to the local bowlers in the East Mesa area that came out and joined the family for the first time. Thanks to all of you!
This event’s pattern and scoring pace was like nothing we have seen so far this season. This event we used the USBC White Pattern. It is 40ft in length and yielded very high scores for all styles. We had players that went straight and hard, and players that were high rev power players. The weekend showed that the best scores came off of the fresh squad. After that it was a real coin toss as to if the lanes were going to be easier or harder. Most of the players were throwing their weakest balls and some even throwing urethane. It was a much easier pattern then usual and allowed the players to really have some fun and throw a lot of strikes.
We had quite a few new members join the family this weekend so I want to give a quick shout out to them. I would like to welcome Lance Bentley, Lynda Bettini, Kim Keller, Steven Selby, James Miller, Ryan Markan, Doug Stock, and Josh McQuillen. I hope you all enjoyed your first experience with the club!
Our $100 per game side pots squad was another big success, with 30 bowlers all bowling that squad at once. Josh McQuillen shot 289 the first game, Bill Held and Steve Hamlett bowled 263 the second game and Dori Jaffess bowled a nice 307 the last game. All of these players either won the $100 each game or split it for $50 each. Congrats to you all and good bowling!
I always try to give a summary of those that showed the power of the parlay. This weekend there were two bowlers that really ruled the parlay. One was Ben Dewberry who crushed the parlay squads with scores on Saturday and on Sunday of well over +100. The real parlay power player was Dylan Taylor. He came in on Sunday, shot nearly 200 over for the economy parlay and then the next squad advanced to the quarter finals with another set of +212. That is easily the highest 6 game set that we have had in the SFT AHT. Great bowling Dylan!
Our A Division quarter finals had 8 players cutting to two. Those two players were the A division leader Dylan Taylor shooting +195, and Joe Yannacci taking advantage of his 3rd game to go big and go around everyone to finish +87. Dylan was dominating all day long and it seemed he was a clear favor to not only win this match but the whole thing. A couple early splits for Dylan combined with some clutch 3,6,9,10 conversions by Joe allowed Joe to get out to an early lead. Dylan didn’t give up and struck out in the 9th and 10th to force Joe to mark in the 10th. Joe threw a great shot but left a 10 pin, which on the dry conditions wasn’t an easy spare for a power player like himself. Joe, throwing a house ball for spares, covered the spare with ease and moved on as the A division champion.
Our B Division quarter finals were very high scoring to say the least. The players had softer conditions to strike on and when combined with their handicap created some large scores. The B Division leader after quarters was Steve Hamlett at +157 and he was followed closely by Chuck Kremer at +147. Although Steve was the leader, Chuck was more of a favorite as he was coming off a 2nd place finish at AMF Christown and was clearly on fire. Not to mention that Chuck bowls a couple nights a week at Mesa East and is very comfortable in that center. Chuck was determined to get another chance at a title and ended Steve’s run early in the match. The final scores were Chuck 257 to Steve’s 160.
The final match was back and forth with Joe striking a bit more early but missing a couple spares. Chuck didn’t strike as much but was staying clean which kept him in the match. Chuck got his nerves calmed and started making great shots at the end of the match when he needed them most. This put him in a position at the end of the match to only need a spare to win. He left a 10 pin just as Joe did in his previous semi-final match, and then just as Joe did, Chuck covered the spare which gave him his first SFT AHT title, $1,000, and bragging rights! Joe took home $500. Congrats to both of you guys on your success!
We look forward to seeing everyone at our first “fun force format” next weekend at AMF Mesa Lanes. This event is a one day, fun, and affordable format. We will be doing Criss Cross doubles which allows bowlers to bowl with as many double partners as they want for each squad. Then they bowl three games and their 3 game total gets put with all of their fellow teammates scores to form their team score. It will be very affordable with the each person’s cost being $30 to bowl in their first team and an extra $20 to bowl in additional teams. Sounds awesome right!? Well you also get DOUBLE SEASON POINTS! That’s right, a lot of fun and get a head in the season point’s race to get invited to the 2012 Pruitt’s Match Play Invitational. Click here for more info on this event, and we hope to see you all there! As always thanks for reading!
Final Match: