Our event this weekend was at AMF Chandler Lanes on the 35ft Cheetah oil pattern! It was our final standard event of the 2019 season, and we were happy to see the SFT AHT family come out and support the last event regardless of everything going on this time of year. The event had 95 total entries (66 qualifying entries & 29 economy parlay entries), 26 prize winners, a 1 in 3.65 cash ratio and a payout of over $5,000.00 in main and side event prize fund. The cheetah pattern had some high scores at time and even one bowler (Ron Gonzales) who ran the front 10 of the first game of the quarterfinals, but not everyone was able to do that so the cut scores in general were not that crazy considering this is normally a higher scoring sport pattern. The average cut score for the day was around +42 which isn't insanely high, considering there were a few people who went over +100 for their 3 games. These short patterns very commonly seem to work out like that. If you can get comfortable playing very far right, you get access to better ball reaction that more limited and restricted players can't access. This causes some players to really score high, but the scoring in general to not really go up as much.
This weekend we had one Parlay Power Player, one first-time Quarterfinalist and one new bowler! Sean Ashley was our Parlay Power Player bowling 676 with handicap in the Economy Parlay to win a free Qualifying Entry with Progressive Pot and then used that free entry to advance to the quarterfinals with a nice 704 series. This all put a bow tie on a very impressive and dominant season for him as our 2019 Overall Player of the Year. We also had a new member be our only first-time quarterfinalist of the event. Congrats to Jessica Rupert for representing the ladies and accomplishing a pretty impressive feat in her first try.
The quarterfinals started off on a fresh oil pattern which helped the scores not to continue to escalate. The scores not going up was an understatement as the scores were very low besides the Top 2 A division bowlers. In the A Division there was #1 seed Matthew Zweig at +84 and #2 seed Ron Gonzales at +63, but that plus 63 included a single game where Ron was +100 from an impressive front 10 strikes. In the B Division the #1 seed was Shawna Strause at +45 and the #2 seed Brian Roever, technically didn't even bowl their average for series with a +13. In the C Division it was even lower with the top 2 bowlers being tied at +14, which was Michael Sylve and newcomer Jessica Rupert. Michael won the tie breaker having the higher qualifying series to make it to the quarterfinals to be our #1 seed.
All three matches for the first time in quite some time were decided before the 10th frame. Brian Roever caught a couple doubles while Shawna struggled to move on. Matt started off with the front 6 which got him a lead that Ron could not battle back from and lastly Michael Sylve struggled with some missed spares early on to fall too far behind Jessica. This mean we would have a very classic SFT final match with a classic A Division, B Division and C Division bowlers who perfectly represented their Division.
The Final match started off with Brian and Jessica stringing strikes and Matt making spares, which meant Matt, who was already spotting both players pins was even further behind. Brian ended up really accelerating into a lead with some good breaks for Brooklyn strikes and never looked back. He bowled his highest game of the tournament of 246 to take home the title and $1,000!!! Congrats to Jessica on 2nd and Matthew for 3rd Place.
Thanks to everyone for coming out to the event! We will see you all next weekend for the Banquet, Season Ending Meeting, and Match Play invitational at AMF McRay.
