Our 2014 season had somewhat of a dramatic build up. The members made some pretty big changes at the end of 2013 to create three divisions and open the club up to even more players. These big changes could have gone over with the bowlers in a variety of ways. However, after having our opening event in 2014 it’s safe to say that the members made some great changes that people are really looking forward to for the rest of the 2014 season. I say that because we passed our previous 6 squad tournament entry record by nearly 50%! The old record which was around 110 entries got blown out of the water with 153 entries this weekend at Brunswick Kyrene! There was definitely more lower average bowlers there due to having the additional lower averaged “C” division, and some higher averaged players there due to the higher averaged “A” division where players don’t have as much handicap. We want to thank all of the members at the meeting this year for their great ideas and team effort on making this season even better than the last one. Hopefully the 2014 season continues in this direction…
Now let’s get to the event! There were 153 entries, 39 cashers and a 1 in 3.9 cash ratio. The event paid out nearly $6,000.00 total and drew nearly 100 different bowlers. The players bowled on a very unknown 43ft pattern called Phantom which was designed by Brunswick for Brunswick lane machines. It proved to be very difficult. Most of the players played the inside part of the lane, as there was quite a bit of out of bounds to the right. On the fresh, there were no players that really struck up a storm. However, as the lanes got some play on them, players of all styles were able to start putting up some pretty good numbers. The highest scoring squad was definitely the last one with the majority of the advancing players coming off the 1pm squad.
As always we like to congratulate some of the people making their first ever quarter finals at this event and also welcome some new members. The bowlers that bowled in their first ever SFT AHT event this weekend were Jeremy Opp, Donald Pisula, Dan Liebly, Phil Glass, Jessica Copeland, Larry Pratt, Daniel Roethle, James Roethle, Kevin Sydow, Melissa Perry, Jeff Burkhead, Ray Ballard, and Derrick Van Dusen. We hope you all had a great time in your first event with us and look forward to seeing you at the next one. Also congrats to James Roethle, Bob Gazis, Larry Thompson, John Nassivera, Tommy Dick, Darrell Heath and Jason Turner on making it to their first ever quarter finals! Congrats guys!
We always re-oil for the quarter finals and with the Phantom pattern, that meant scores would be low. A new exciting 2014 feature that the member’s decided on was to give the leader in each average division choice of pair for the semi-final round. After quarter finals, the #1 seeds in each division were Ryan Wright in C division, Chuck Kremer in B division and Jason Craigen in A division. The player with the higher pinfall in the quarter finals got to pick their pair first. This ended up becoming a factor because the first two pair that Jason wanted were both taken by Chuck and Ryan first since they bowled a better score then him in the quarter finals.
The A division semi-finals were between #1 seed Jason Craigen, #2 seed Jon Ferrell, and #3 seed Ben Dewberry. This match was fairly close for the majority of the match but Ben Dewberry was able to get a good enough lead going into the 10th frame to have everyone shut out. This meant Ben would move on to bowl for his 2nd SFT AHT standard event title.
The B division semi-finals were between #1 seed Chuck Kremer, #2 seed Billy Pretlove and #3 seed Darrell Heath. Chuck, who got to choose the pair, got behind in the match pretty early due to some missed spares. Darrell and Billy were going back and forth till the very end but a shot that looked pretty good, went high and left Billy a 4,6 split in the 9th frame. This pretty much locked it up for Darrell and meant that in his first quarter finals appearance, he had made it all the way to the final match!
The C division semi-finals were between #1 seed Ryan Wright, #2 seed Chuck Lucas and #3 seed Ted Mckay. In all three matches, the player that got to choose the pair didn’t win the match. Chuck Lucas bowled a very good 249 with handicap to move on to his 2nd final match in just a few months.
The final match was a good one. Ben Dewberry started off slow in the match and wasn’t making the handicap that he needed to. Darrell and Chuck were going back and forth with Darrell unable to completely make up for the additional handicap Chuck was getting. As the last half of the game go underway, Ben started stringing some strikes together. A 3 bagger later at the same time as a few opens by his competitors and Ben quickly moved from 3rd to 1st. He just needed to stay clean, fill frames and he would be a two time SFT AHT champion. He was able to do that, which allowed him to be our first 2014 champion.
On a side note, the last final match that Chuck Lucas and Ben Dewberry were in was at Brunswick Via Linda together. Chuck told Dewberry that he was happy that he won since Chuck beat Dewberry the last time they bowled each other in the title match. Maybe we will be able to see a final rematch to determine the victor. Also, ironicallly enough, Ben didn't qualify for the quarter finals in this event. He used one of his exemptions that he earned from last season's point race. This means that he doesn't get points for his win this weekend in this year's season points race. Although a $1,000.00 is nice, many will say 500 points is pretty useful too.
