Our event this weekend was at Glenfair lanes and we had a pretty good turnout considering we haven’t been here in almost a year! We had 92 total entries (62 qualifying and 30 economy parlays) with a cash ratio of 1 in 3.83 and paying out over $5,500 in main and side event prize funds. The bowlers played on a very difficult 37ft Kegel Radium oil pattern, that is a bit short and flat, saw some pretty low-cut scores. The average cut to make it to the quarterfinals was about even, which meant that you just had to get close to your average to move on. Shorter patterns have always been very difficult at this bowling center. For whatever reason, regardless of the oil pattern, the gutters have always been a bit out of play and don't have a lot of reaction off of them. Because of this, shorter oil patterns are extremely difficult. The key this weekend was definitely spares!
We had some new bowlers join us for their first event and we want to welcome Cesar Padilla, Jr., Joshua Perry, Corey Poyner, Martin Ho and Outhay Lalab who all bowled their first event! We hope you all had a good time and look forward to seeing you at our next event. Congrats to our only Parlay Power Players this weekend in Hunter Mayes! Hunter made it all the way to Finals, but more on that down below. We’d like to say congrats to Cesar Padilla, Jr., Corey Poyner, Michael Dewey and Jesse Koneke for making either their first quarterfinals or their first quarterfinals in quite a while! Also, congrats to Dan Marks, who would win Momma’s Mystery Pot with a score of 138 for $500.00! Your winner of the free plastic ball, with an option to upgrade to any Track high-performance bowling ball for $85.00, was Nieko McCullough!
The quarterfinals were bowled on the fresh oil pattern. We had 18 quarterfinalists, with all three Divisions having 6 bowlers. The cut ratio from the quarterfinals to the semi-finals is 1 in 3, so that meant we would cut to the Top 2 bowlers in each Division. With the re-oil the pattern played a bit truer and scores would remain low except for some bowlers that were able to take advantage of the re-oil. It looked like it would all come down to the third game of the quarterfinals to determine who would make it to the semi-finals.
In the A Division, your #1 seed would be red hot youth bowler Cesar Padilla, Jr., (+170) and he would take on Parlay Power Player Hunter Mayes (+42). The B Division #1 seed was Orshawante Bryant (+23) and he would face off with current SFT Player of the Year Ron Gonzales (-28). The C Division was led by Justin Lewis (-5) and he would meet upcoming youth bowler Harper Schmidt (-31).
The C Division semi-final would see the match go back and forth between Justin and Harper. It would come down to the ninth and tenth frames as Justin would strike in the ninth and tenth to get by Harper, 204 to 176. The B Division semi-final would see Orshawante struggle with carry as Ron Gonzales would absolutely catch fire to win the match, 289 to 197. The A Division semi-final would be high scoring with it all coming down to the tenth frame. Cesar had a narrow lead going into the tenth, but his first ball would go a bit high leaving a nasty 2-4-10 split. He would calmly get up and absolutely nailing the 2-4 and shooting the 2-pin into the 10-pin to convert the split! Cesar would then strike on the fill to finish at 262. This would mean that Hunter would need to double in order to win the match. Hunter would get up and crush the pocket on the first ball in the tenth. His second shot would look a bit high, but hold enough to swish all the pins out for the double and then he would crush the pocket on the fill to win the match with a score of 271.
Going into the Finals we would have both Hunter Mayes and Justin Lewis looking at winning their first title and the $950.00 first place prize! Standing in their way was reigning 2020 SFT Player of the Year, Ron Gonzales. Ron was looking to tie the late, great Lynn Arthur with tenth SFT AHT titles and also looking at taking over the overall 2021 Player of the Year points race. If you didn’t know Ron has been bowling our tournament club since we started and has been doing this by traveling here every weekend from Tucson!
The Finals would start off with Hunter and Justin striking in the first two frames as Ron would struggle to get lined up on the pair. Justin would open in the third and fourth frames as Hunter would continue to try and overcome the handicap deficit that he was giving Ron and Justin. Ron would open in the third and spare in the fourth. Midway through the match and all three bowlers were about even. Justin would see transition as he would struggle the last half of the game finishing at 153. Ron would Hunter would stay red hot by doubling up in the sixth and seventh frames to take the lead. Ron would try and comeback by striking in the eighth, but would split in the ninth and Ron would finish up with all three in the tenth to finish at 175. Hunter would cruise to the win even going gutter open in the tenth to win with a score of 212. This would give Hunter his first SFT AHT title and $950.00!! Congrats to Ron Gonzales on 2nd place and also congrats to Justin Lewis on 3rd place.
Thank you to everyone that came out this weekend! We are going to be off for the next two weekends and we’ll be back on August 22nd at Bowlero Kyrene! Hope you all have a great break and we’ll see you soon.
FINALS - Hunter Mayes vs. Ron Gonzales vs. Justin Lewis
