Our event this weekend was at AMF Mesa, and it would be our last event of the 2022 Summer Quarterly Circuit. Our season points race, to determine our Player of the Year, is also broken into quarterly circuits with prizes awarded for the Top 4 bowlers in each quarter. We had a lighter turnout considering there were plenty of other events going on throughout the Valley and especially with the NFL season kicking off the previous weekend. We had 85 total entries (70 qualifying & 15 economy parlays) for 2 squads, with 24 prize winners and a 1 in 3.54 cash ratio. We paid out over $6,500 in main and side event prize funds. The players bowled on a pattern we don’t use often that is a tough one to get used to. The PBA pattern Badger that is 52 foot in length. This is the longest oil pattern used in competitive play and “hooking” your ball into the pocket isn’t really an option at the beginning. You have to get used to your ball fading back high flush until they start to break down a little bit. The big difference throughout the day was spares and with so much oil on the lane it was hard to “hook” at spare attempts that you would normally be able to convert.
We want to welcome Stephen Chausse, Robert Hill, Kyler Adams, Dana Cornelius, Robert Klawitter, and Alex Benton to the SFT AHT family! We hope you all had a good time in your first SFT AHT event and hope we see you back at our future events. Congrats to Joshua Brown and Savannah Sears on being this weekend’s Parlay Power Players! Both of these bowlers took their $30 investment and turned it into a quarterfinals check! Also, congrats to Eric Ebenger and Daniel Milstead for making their first quarterfinals or who were returning to the quarterfinals in a while. So, congrats to Kyler Adams for making his first quarterfinals in his first event! We would see Brandon Crandell win the Momma’s Mystery Pot, with a score of 180, for $500.00! Your winner of the free plastic bowling ball, with an option to upgrade to any Track high performance ball for $85.00, was Robert Smith, Jr.!
Since this event was only two squads there would be no re-oil before the quarterfinals. We would see 20 bowlers in the Quarterfinals and with our 1 in 3 cut ratio, we would see the Top 2 bowlers in all three Divisions advancing to the Semi-Finals after the three quarterfinal games. The cut scores would remain on the low side, but we would have a few bowlers figure out the pattern and it would reflect in their scores. It looked like it would come down to Game 3 of the quarterfinals to determine who would be in the Top 3 of their division.
The A Division would see Dylan Taylor (+143) emerge as the #1 seed and he would take on Nykolas Walker (+99). The C Division would have Audie Atkins (+53) facing off with Neiko McCullough (+44). The B Division would see Parlay Power Player Joshua Brown (+72) emerge as the #1 seed, but he would have to wait as we would see Quinten Bell (+6) and Tracy Lee (+6) tie for the #2 seed. We would see a ninth and tenth frame roll-off between Quinten and Tracy for a spot in the semi-finals.
The way that the ninth and tenth frame roll-off works, is that each bowler’s handicap is divided by 5 with the decimal playing in the event of another tie. So, Quinten Bell would be getting 4.8 pins of handicap and Tracy Lee would be getting 6.4 pins for his roll-off. The roll-off would start with Tracy throwing her first ball which would hit the pocket light leaving the ten pin. Tracy would miss the spare as Quentin would get up looking to capitalize. Quinten’s first ball in the ninth frame would go long and miss the head pin leaving the 1-5-9. Quentin’s spare attempt would chop the 1-9 out leaving the five pin for an open to keep the match even. Quentin would get be up for the tenth frame and would high the pocket a bit high for a split, leaving the 4-6-7. Quentin would chop the spare attempt and finish at 21.8. Tracy would be up next for her tenth frame, and we would see her double and get nine on the fill to win the roll-off with a score of 44.4 to advance on to the Divisional Semi-Finals.
The A Division Semi-Final match would see Nykolas Walker start off hot and he would try to hold off Dylan Taylor. Nykolas could not keep up as Dylan would double in the eighth and ninth frames to get by him to win the match, 224 to 254. The B Division Semi-Final would be a close match until the last few frames. Joshua Brown would start off with a double but then would struggle with a bit of transition on the pair. Tracy would stay clean for most of the match and would get into a bit of trouble in the sixth frame but would go on to win the match, 239 to 199. The C Division Semi-Final would go back and forth between Audie Atkins and Neiko McCullough. Neiko would double in the tenth frame to pull out the win, 221 to 194, to advance to the Finals.
Going into the Finals it looked like it would be a really good match as all three bowlers had pretty good Semi-Finals games. Dylan Taylor was looking to capture his eighth AHT SFT title and his first of this season. Tracy Lee and Neiko McCullough were both looking to take down their second titles and win the $1,000.00 first place prize!
The Finals would start off with Dylan looking to get lined up as he would start off on the left lane with a seven-spare. Neiko and Tracy would both get single pin spares. Dylan would strike in the second frame as he was looking to make up the handicap difference, he was giving Tracy and Neiko. Tracy would pick up the 4-7 in the second to stay clean while Neiko would open as he would chop the 1-2-4-7. Dylan would leave a six-pin in the third frame, and he would go one to pick it up. Tracy would strike in the third to take a slight lead. Neiko would open again as he was unable to convert the 1-2-5-9 which would put him in a small hole. Dylan would hit the pocket light in the fourth frame as he would leave the 4-7. Dylan would go on to pick up the spare and then strike in the fifth frame as it looked like he was starting to get lined up. Tracy would leave a light mixer 7-pin in the fourth and get eight-spare in the fifth as she would continue to keep her lead. Neiko looked to get back into the match as he would strike in the fourth frame but would chop the baby split in the fifth frame.
Midway through the match and it looked like it would come down to the last couple of frames to determine our winner. Dylan would crush the pocket but leave a ringing ten-pin, which he would spare. Tracy’s sixth frame would see her hit the pocket very light and leave the 4-9, which she wouldn’t convert for her only open of the match. Neiko would again strike on the left lane as it looked like he had found a look on that lane. Dylan would go on to double in the seventh and eighth frames to take a small lead. Tracy would try to get back into the match but could not strike as she would leave single pin spares in the seventh and eighth frames that she would convert. Neiko would nine-spare in the sixth and then would chop the 3-6 spare attempt in eighth frame. Dylan would leave a stone 9-pin in the ninth which he would pick up and in the tenth he would strike on this first ball but would go seven and chop the spare attempt to finish at 214. Neiko would finish with a score of 170 as he would open in the tenth frame. It looked like Tracy would need to double in the tenth to win the match. Tracy’s first ball in the tenth would come up a bit high leaving the 6-pin. Tracy would go on to pick up the spare and then get seven on the fill to finish at 207. This would give Dylan Taylor his eighth AHT SFT title and the $1,000 first place prize. Congratulations to Tracy Lee who would take the momentum from the ninth/tenth frame roll-off and finish in second place for $600.00. Also, congrats to Neiko McCullough on third place and $400.00!
Thank you to everyone that came out this weekend to bowl our event! I know that there were tons of events going on from the PBA Regional just down the street at Bowlero Mesa to the CBE Senior event going on, on the other side of the Valley. Huge thank you to Kevin Werden and the staff at AMF Mesa for hosting our event! Also, a BIG thank you to Tawna McDonald and Michael Dragon for all the work they do to help run our events! We will be back in a couple of weeks to kick off the 2022 Fall Quarterly Circuit on Saturday, October 1st at Cotton Bowl Lanes in Casa Grande, AZ!
AMF Mesa Finals - Dylan Taylor vs. Tracy Lee vs. Neiko McCullough
