Our event this weekend was a huge one! 114 entries with 78 qualifying entries, and 36 economy parlay entries! We not only paid out $1,000.00 for first, but also increased the semi-final checks to $180 and 3rd place to $400! The players bowled on a very difficult 48ft Eiffel Tower pattern that forced players to play the lanes pretty straight due to a lack of friction which comes from such a long oil pattern. Seemed like players of all styles could find a line. If they were more speed dominant, they were right of the 3rd arrow pointing it at the pocket. As the player became more and more rev dominant, they would play the lanes further and further left, but still be aiming at the pocket pretty much.
We do want to welcome Joey Damon, Bobby Hedge, Ruben Webber, Evan Coco, and William Ingraham to the SFT AHT family! They all bowled in their first event this weekend and we were happy to have them! We hope you all had a good time in your first event, and we look forward to seeing you at the next one! We also had Jarquis and Marquis Rodgers making their first ever quarterfinals! Pretty cool to see brothers do it together at the same time! Also, congrats to Todd Browning who made his first quarterfinals! His wife also made the cut, which is always cool to see! Congrats to both of them! We also want to congratulate Brian Roever, Chris Stafford and Sam Hsu on making it all the way to the quarter finals off of the $25 economy parlay option.
The quarterfinals were on the fresh which is always really tough, and the scores showed it. Even though we had the best of the best for the day bowling. The scores to move on were still pretty low. The top 2 bowlers in each division bowled on average +50 to have to advance to the championship match of their division. Our match ups were #1 seed Todd Browning vs #2 seed Luke Sullivan in the C Division, #1 seed Charlie Price vs #2 seed Sean Ashley in the A Division and #1 seed Zack Huglin vs #2 seed Ken Davis in the B Division. The C Division match was back and forth at the start, but Luke was able to string some spares to take the lead and never look back. In the B Division, Ken Davis was able to take advantage of some good breaks to get out in front of and stay in front of Zack. The A Division match was the most dramatic of the 3 matches. Charlie had a good size lead going into the last two frames. However, Sean struck in the 8th and 9th to put some pressure on Charlie to finish the match out with a couple marks. Unfortunately, Charlie finished with 2 opens to give Sean the lead back and Sean only needed a mark which he was able to get.
The final match was a good one! All players were in it by the middle of the game. However, some late opens made Ken drop behind quite a bit and it was between Sean and Luke. However, a string in the 7th, 8th and allowed Sean to take the lead by a good margin. However, he then opened in the 10th frame to give an opportunity back to Luke. Luke could strike out in the 10th to take home the win. It was a tall task, considering he hadn't doubled in the match yet. His first shot was high and didn't strike giving Sean his first title of the year and $1,000.00!
Thank you to everyone that came out to support the event! We are taking a week off next weekend, but join us at our next event on Saturday, March 14th at AMF Union Hills!
