We had an awesome weekend in Laughlin for our annual Laughlin trip to get out down and bowl some tournaments with some new friends! Both events had more entries and local support this year then last year. We are excited to have already scheduled are return to Laughlin in 2016! We will be coming back on the same weekend in March in 2016 and will be using the same type of formats that we used this year! The criss cross doubles drew 26 teams, had 7 cashing teams and paid out nearly $1,000.00 in main and side event prizes. The Riverside Championship event on Sunday, used a Minor event format, had 41 entries (31 qualifying and 10 economy parlay), 12 cashers, a 1 in 3.4 cash ratio and paid out over $2,000.00 in main and side event prizes.
As always we like to welcome all of the new bowler that joined us for their first event. This is one of the best parts about the Laughlin trip, we get to meet so many new people that are as passionate about bowling as we are! Sharon Weger, Al Colella, Todd Adams, Darren Colella, Alex Souza, Joe Souza, Marcus Williams, Jason Furnas, James Kurtz, Sal Soriano, Barb Mackenzie, and Manny Lakhan all bowled in their first SFT AHT event this weekend! We want to welcome them all and thank them for coming out to participate. We hope you all had a great time and we look forward to seeing you at your next event!
We also want to congratulate Darryl Johnson, Alex Souza, Ross Lyons and Barb Mckenzie on being our "fresh faces" in the quarter finals. This means they were either bowling in their first ever quater finals, or or their first event in a very long time. We always enjoy seeing new bowlers doing well and taking home some moolah! We also want to congratulate Dylan Taylor for something we are normally congratulating him for, showing the power of the parlay! Dylan once again, made it all the way to the quarter finals through the economy parlay side event!
The quarter finals had an exciting finish to determine our division champsions. Since there were only 3 quarter finalists in each division, the usual 1 in 3 cut to the semi-final meant that we were advancing straight to the top bowlers in each division. In the C division, Darryl Johnson had a 60 pin lead over Alex Souza and seemed poised to make his very first title match. However, the end pair didn't treat Darryl well, and treated Alex, who was on the same pair with Darryl, much better. Alex ended beating Darryl the very last game by over 60 pins to pass Darryl and become the C division champion. In the B division, Ross Lyons and Chuck Lucas were also on the same pair and went into the last game neck and neck, but Ross was able to do what he needed to stay ahead of Chuck and become the B division champion. The A divsion ironically also had both players in the hunt on the same pair together. After an impressive 299 game to start his 3 games, Jason Satterlee, who has been on a hot streak, looked poised to make yet another title match. However, his third game, he had some troubles bowling a 170 game. George Dayton, who didn't give up after Jason's 299 kept charging and threw some very clutch strikes in game 3 to bowl a very nice 257 game scratch to pass Jason as the A division champion.
The final match was a bit of a back and forth between Alex and George but some opens by George and a well timed three bagger by Alex allowed Alex to cruise to his very first SFT AHT title in his very first event! Alex is a well mannered 17 year old that just got into bowling and just switched to a finger tip grip a couple months ago. He has been working hard on his game and it showed this weekend! Great bowling to Alex and the other participants. Also congrats to George on not only coming in 2nd but completely dominating the criss cross doubles cashing 4 times and winning it with Jason Satterlee. Thanks to everyone that came out and we look forward to seeing everyone at AMF Desert Hills next Saturday for the fun event. See you all there!
