Well we have started off our 2014 season with some exciting new rule changes and it has gotten us 5 out of 5 2014 standard events with over 110 entries! AMF Christown had 114 entries, 31 cashers, a 1 in 3.67 cash ratio, and paid out nearly $5,000.00 in main and side event prizes. The players had a rude awakening on a 41ft Turn Pike pattern that isn't quite US Open but is pretty darn close with a 2.2 to 1 ratio. This means that the board with the most amount of oil on it has 2.2 times the amount of oil on it as the board with the least amount of oil. The common "house shot" used in leagues are anywhere from 7 to 1 all the way up to 13 to 1. The pattern this weekend was very difficult, and the scores reflected it.
First off let's start with meeting some of our new members that bowled in their first ever SFT AHT event this weekend. Kyle Duster, Clara Zimmerman, Nicholas Olson, Amanda Atkin, Richard Kasting Jr., and Megan Withey were added to the SFT AHT family this weekend! We hope you all had a good time in your first event and look forward to seeing you at your next one! We can't thank all of the current members enough for how much they spread the word and bring in new bowlers. We owe our success to you completely!
We always like to congratulate people that did special things this weekend. First off, let's talk about the bowlers that were bowling in their first ever quarter finals. Larry Hofmann, KJ Martinez, Aaron Yamamoto, and Rick Hashimoto were all bowling in their first ever SFT AHT quarter finals. We are always happy to see new faces having success at the events. Our next congrats goes to Joe Mascio and Daniel Scott who showed the power of the parlay. They turned their $25 entry fee into a nice quarter finals check that landed them just a couple games away from $1,000.00. A special congrats to a long time member and good friend of ours Billy Pretlove for collecting $135 for a small $5 entry fee. How? He won Momma's Mystery Score with a whopping 173 game! Almost a $1 a pin Billy! Congrats to everyone!
That leads us to our semi-final matches. There were some pretty interesting and exciting things that happened. We will start with the exciting stuff first. The A and C division matches were won pretty easily with Ted McKay defeating Bo Copeland in the C division and Aaron Yamamoto defeating Russ Oviatt in the A division. The exciting match was Carlos Vejar vs Ron Gonzales in the B division. Both players were seasoned veterans and it showed when it came down to the 10th frame. Ron finished first, and was faced with the situation of forcing Carlos to do whatever he does in the 10th. Ron showed poise and threw three strikes to force Carlos to double and get 8. Carlos threw two great shots to put himself in a good position but, with a difficult pattern, 8 wasn't the easiest thing to get. Carlos missed inside and what could have been a 5, 6, or 7 count through the face ended up being 8 for Carlos to win by 1 pin! Now for the interesting thing I mentioned earlier. Prior to this event there was an abysmal record by the #1 seeds in each division who got to chose the pair that their semi-final match was bowled on. It was something like 3 - 9 in our first 4 events. Well this event helped show why it may be an advantage. All three #1 seeds that chose the pair, won their match. It was the first time with having 3 divisions that our finalists led wire to wire.
The final match kept the "interesting" alive and didn't short us on any excitement either. The players all started off very poorly with 0 strikes in the first 4 frames and only a few spares between the three of them. Slowly opens led to spares and by the 8th and 9th we saw some striking from everyone. I know what you are saying, that doesn't sound interesting. Well the match with all first time titlist that seemed to be like hot potato quickly became a nail biter between clutch super stars. Going into the 10th frame every single player had a chance at winning but had to match what the other two players did in the 10th frame. Aaron Yamamoto threw 3 strikes in the 10th to force Carlos and Ted to double and get good count to beat him. Carlos who, as stated above was clutch in the semi-finals, did it once again by tripping a couple four pins and getting enough to beat Aaron Yamamoto 208 to 203. Ted McKay got up with nearly a couple dozen people watching and needed to throw two strikes and 7 to win $1,000.00. His first shot was a good one putting all 10 in the pit. His second one was a little in but he learned a little from Carlos tripping the 4 pin for another strike. His final shot was another good one which sealed his first SFT AHT title and a big $1,000.00 pay day! Congrats to Ted and the other finalist for their incredible performances under pressure.
