AMF McRay - 1/12/20

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Our event this weekend was at AMF McRay and drew 110 total entries (72 qualifying and 38 economy parlay), had 28 cashers, a 1 in 3.9 cash ratio and paid out over $5,000.00 in main and side event prize fund. The players bowled on a 35ft Boardwalk oil pattern that played a bit harder than usual. This pattern can tend to be high scoring, because it allows some miss room to the right if the bowler is able to get far enough to the right. That did exist on some of the pairs, but other pairs didn’t have the same look.  The scores on the fresh pattern were a bit low but scoring exploded in the later squads with most bowlers shooting close to +70 to make the cut.

We want to quickly welcome our new bowlers that joined us for this weekend’s event! Taj Stewart-Cook, Nick Lyons and Tres Pucci joined us this weekend for their first event.  Taj narrowly made the quarterfinals on his first try, tying for the last insurance spot in his Division.  We had only one parlay power player this weekend and it was Gary Spinler.  Gary was able to make the quarterfinals off his $25 parlay entry.  We also had a few bowlers make it to their first quarterfinals or their first quarterfinals in quite a while in Taj Stewart-Cook, Jonah Tafoya and Gary Roff.  Your ball raffle winner for a free plastic ball, with an option to upgrade to any Track high performance ball for $85.00, was Brandon Bailey.

The quarterfinalists bowled on the fresh Boardwalk oil pattern and scores were very low with just breaking even would almost get you a spot in the semi-finals.  It seemed that every Division Finalist was able to minimize mistakes and stay away from open frames.   In the A Division it was #1 seed Chris Allen (+22) taking on Jonathan Ferrell (+4).  The B Division leader was James Roethle (+18) and he would face off with Andy Morin (+16).  Meanwhile in the C Division Player of the Year Josh Black (+29) would have to bowl against Eddie Thompson (-1) for a spot in the Finals.

The A Division semi-final match would go down to the last few frames with Chris Allen throwing enough strikes to get by Jonathan Ferrell, 200 to 179.  The B Division would see James Roethle get out to an early lead to defeat Andy Morin, 216 to 197.  The C Division would be a back and forth match with Eddie Thompson getting a few timely strikes to get by Josh Black, 220 to 204.

This would leave us with all three Finalist looking for another AHT SFT title and a chance at the $1,150 first place prize.  Chris Allen would be the #1 seed overall and he was looking at capturing his third title.  James Roethle had been throwing the ball good for most of the day and he too was looking to get his hands on his 3rd title.  Eddie Thompson was looking at getting his 2nd title and has been bowling pretty good for the last few events.  Eddie had just came in 2nd place at the Match Play Invitational which was bowled last month in this very same center and seemed confident on the lanes today.

The Final match would start out with Chris Allen leading off the match getting nine-spare and then throwing a double in the 2nd & 3rd frames.  James Roethle would take a couple frames to get lined up as he would miss a couple of spares early on.  Eddie Thompson would throw three strikes in the first four frames to jump out to an early lead.  Midway through the match Eddie would chop the 3-6-10 spare attempt to give an opening to Chris and James.  Chris would try to catch up, but he would also chop the 2-5 spare in the fifth frame to keep the match even.

Eddie would get a bit lost in transition opening in 7th & 8th frames allowing Chris to keep pace.  James would finally get lined up and started to strike in the 7th, 8th & ninth frames to furiously get himself back into the match.  It would all come down to the last two frames.  Chris would chop the 3-10 spare and then strike and fill in the tenth to finish at 195.  James would leave a 6-pin on the first ball, pick up his spare and get 7 on the fill to finish at 196, just one pin ahead of Chris.  Eddie would get up in the tenth and punch out all three strikes to finish with a score of 218 to get him his 2nd AHT SFT title and the huge $1,150 first place prize.  Congrats to James Roethle for 2nd place and to Chris Allen for 3rd place.

Thank you to everyone that came out and supported our event this weekend.  Sorry there is no video from the Final match as the camera that we were using would have issues trying to stream Facebook Live.  We hope to see you all next Sunday, January 19th at Bowlero Kyrene for our standard event!!!