SFT News And Photo Courtesy Of SFT.
Glendale - - - Our event this weekend was at Glenfair lanes on 8/1, 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.
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Chandler - - - Our event this weekend, Junly 25, was at AMF Chandler lanes! We had a great turnout with 111 entries (66 qualifying entries and 45 economy parlay), 28 cashers, a 1 in 3.96 cash ratio and paid out over $5,700.00 in main and side event prize funds. The players bowled on the old 35ft PBA Cheetah oil pattern that provided higher cut scores than usual. Cheetah tends to be one of the easiest sport patterns, as it allows players to get some free hook on the gutter which is similar to the house shot. However, it is still a sport pattern, and isn't a walk in the park. There isn't a lot of oil in the middle of the lane, like a house shot, so you have to get it to the outside friction or the ball will run high in the pocket.
We had some new bowlers that came out this weekend to try our event. We’d like to welcome Austin Hockett, Charles Adams, Gissele Adams, Jesse Konek and Jeffrey Buttery. We hope you guys had a good time at your first event and we look forward to seeing you at the next one! Also, congrats to this weekend’s Parlay Power Players in Eric Flick and Eddie Thompson who both made it to the Finals off their initial $25.00 Economy Parlay entry, but more on that in a bit. We’d also like to congratulate Michael Dominik, Daniel Capps, Ron Schloss, Marcus Haley and David Burns for making either their first quarterfinals or their first in quite a while! We would also see Momma’s Mystery Score won with a score of 196 for $500.00, with both Geoff Garrow and Josh Anthony splitting the pot. Your winner of the free plastic ball raffle, with an option to upgrade to any Track ball for $85.00, was Brian Waugh.
The quarterfinals were bowled on the fresh oil pattern. We had 19 quarterfinalists, with the C Division having 7 bowlers and the A & B 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 take off with some of the highest scores of the day. Eddie Thompson would have a chance at 300 in his 3rd game of the quarterfinals. He would go a bit high on his last shot to get to 298 and lock up a spot in the semi-final round.
In the A Division, your #1 seed would be Brian Waugh (+152) and he would take on Parlay Power Player Eric Flick (+143). The C Division #1 seed was the other Parlay Power Player Eddie Thompson (+220) and he would face off with newcomer Marcus Haley (+155). The B Division was led by Ron McDonald (+154), but he would have to wait as we would see a tie for the #2 seed. Both Ron Schloss and Thomas (Buddy) Darnell finished at +114, with Thomas almost picking up a big 2-10 split to get by Ron. This would mean we would go to a ninth and tenth frame roll-off.
The roll-off would start with Buddy Darnell striking in his ninth frame. Ron Schloss would get up and throw his first shot a bit wide hitting high in the pocket leaving an ugly 3-6-4-7 split. Ron would get up and swing the ball to hit the 3-pin which would take out the 4-7 to pick up the spare! Ron would finish out the tenth frame by punching out all three strikes to finish at 52, with handicap. This would mean that Buddy would need to at least double to win the match. Buddy’s first shot would crush the pocket and his second shot would hit the pocket light leaving the 8-10 split to finish the match at 48.16.
The A Division semi-final would go back and forth with Brian and Eric trying to figure out the pair. The deciding factor would be a missed ten-pin by Brian in the seventh frame. Brian would finish at 215 while Eric would punch out in the tenth to win with a score of 243. The C Division semi-final would also go back and forth between red-hot Eddie Thompson and newcomer Marcus Haley. Marcus would give Eddie a good run, but just come up a bit short. A spare in the ninth would put Marcus just behind as Eddie would punch out in the ninth and tenth to win the match 277 to 258.
The B Division semi-final would be a real nail-biter as we would see Ron vs. Ron come down to the ninth and tenth frame. Ron Schloss was looking good through most of the match, but a bit of lane transition late in the match would even things up. Ron McDonald would strikeout in the eight, ninth and tenth frames to catch and finish at 238. This would mean that Ron Schloss would need all three in the tenth to win or a double and nine would mean a tie and another roll-off. Ron Schloss’ first ball would look good off his hand, but would come up a bit high leaving the 3-6 and giving Ron McDonald the win, 238 to 217.
Going into the Final match, we would see probably the most title between all three competitors that we have seen in quite a while. Eric Flick was looking to get his hands on his fourth title while Ron McDonald was looking at getting his fifth title and Eddie Thompson was looking for his third title. Both Eric and Eddie had made it all the way to the Finals off their $25.00 Economy Parlay entry and were both looking at turning that into the $1,000.00 first place prize!
The Finals would start off with all three bowlers struggling to get lined up on the pair. Eddie would split or open in three of the first four frames while Eric and Ron would look to take advantage of making up the handicap difference. Ron would struggle as well going spare, open, open and spare in the first four frames. Halfway through the match, Eric looked like he would cruise to the win as the only lefty on the pair and not seeing the transition as much as the two righties. Eric would throw a three bagger in the fourth, fifth and sixth frames to take a controlling lead. Eric would leave the lefty Greek Church in the seventh (4-6-7-8-10) which he was unable to convert. Eddie looked to be lined up as he would strike in the fifth and sixth frames to try to catch back up. Ron would spare in the fifth and strike in the sixth as he looked to get himself back in the match, but unfortunately, he would split (6-7-10) in the seventh to put him back in the hole.
Going into the final couple frames it looked like it would come down to parlay power players Eddie and Eric. Eddie would strike in the eighth and ninth frames to put pressure on Eric. Eric would chop the 3-6-9 in the eight and nine-spare in the ninth to fall behind Eddie. Eric would finish the tenth first getting to 196. Eddie would be next and continue to stay on fire, punching out to win the match with a 241 and giving him his 3rd AHT SFT title and $1,000.00!!! Ron would finish up the match with a chance to pass Eric, but would spare out to finish in third place at 188.
Thank you to everyone that came out this weekend! We will see you all next Sunday at Glenfair lanes for our standard 3-squad event! Hope you all have a great week!
FINALS - Eric Flick vs. Ron McDonald vs. Eddie Thompson.
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Mesa - - - Our event this weekend, 7/18, was at AMF Mesa lanes and we had a good turnout for our 2 squad event! We kicked off the 2021 Summer circuit with 95 total entries (59 qualifying and 36 parlays), 25 cashers, and 1 in 3.8 cash ratio and paid out over $4,400.00 in main and side event prize funds! The players bowled on a 32ft PBA Wolf oil pattern that was very demanding. The key for success was to make spares as most bowlers were able to advance to the quarterfinals by shooting their average. This put a premium on spare shooting. The oil pattern saw a lot of friction on the first squad and if you could just leave something makeable, then you were good. As the day wore on, we saw the oil move from down the lanes due to all the urethane being used and scores increased for the second squad of the day.
We would like to welcome Andrea Haley, Jordan Weeston, Neiko McCullough, Robert Ditz and Tyler Rasmussen to the SFT family. We hope that you all had a good time and hope to see you again. We also had some Parlay Power Players in Logan Spencer and Jack Haines! They both made it to the quarterfinals off of their $25 Economy Parlay entry! We also want to congratulate Jeremy Smith, Daniel Capps, Aaron Mendoza, Scott Cook and Jack Sarvis for making their first quarterfinals or their first quarterfinals in quite a while. We did not anyone win the Momma’s Mystery Pot, so we have 2 pots of $500.00 and another at $100.00 that will roll over to next weekend at AMF Chandler. Your winner of the free plastic ball raffle, with an option to upgrade to any Track high performance ball for $85.00, was Tyler Rasmussen.
Since this event was only 2 squads, there was no re-oil before the quarterfinals. This resulted in some very low scores with the standings being very, very tight as bowlers needed to bowl at least one good game to make the cut. It seemed like most of semi-finalists would be determined by the final game of the quarterfinals. With our 1 in 3 cut ratio from the quarterfinals to the semi-final round, we would cut to the Top 2 in each Division. The A Division would see Aaron Stein (+125) emerge as your #1 seed and he would have to face off against William Standefer (+14). The B Division would see Aaron Mendoza (+10) come out on top and he would take on Ron McDonald (-38). The C Division would have newcomer Scott Cook (-8) square off rising youth bowler Harper Schmidt (-16) in the semi-finals.
Aaron Mendoza would be the only #1 seed to advance as we would see the other #1 seeds were unable to take advantage of the lane selections that they had made. William Standefer would upset Aaron Stein in the A Division semi-final throwing a clutch three bagger to win 199 to 171. The B Division would see Aaron Mendoza was able to make some timely spares as Ron McDonald would miss the transition and Aaron was able to win the match, 193 to 163. The C Division would be closer as Scott Cook and Harper Schmidt would go back and forth throughout the match. It would come down to the ninth and tenth frames as Scott would open in the ninth and tenth while Harper was able to strike in the ninth and get good count in the tenth to win the match, 210 to 185.
Going into the Finals we would see William Standefer and Aaron Mendoza both making their first Finals and also looking for their 1st AHT SFT title. Harper Schmidt was looking to add another title as he had previously won at Glenfair last October. The first place prize was projected at $900.00, but we wouldn’t know for certain as Will was not in the progressive pot, so the prize fund would not be finalized until after the match was completed. It would seem that each division winner had a chance to win the match and it would be the one that could make spares and stay out of trouble that would come out on top.
The Final match would see all three bowlers come out trying to get lined up quickly. Both Harper and Will would strike in the first, but open with a split in the second. Aaron would come out nine spare in the first, but would miss a 5 pin spare in the second frame to keep everything evened up. Harper would spare the third frame but then open again in the fourth. Aaron would strike in the third to try and make up for the open in the 2nd and would seem to back on track. William would make spares in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth frames to get a small lead. Harper would make his spares in the fifth, sixth and seventh frames to keep pace as Aaron would strike in the fifth, spare in the sixth, but open in the seventh chopping the 2-4-5. William would strike in the seventh frame and spare in the eighth to continue with his lead. Harper looked to be getting lined up as he would strike in the eighth frame, but would miss the 6-10 spare in the ninth frame to give Will the lead. Aaron would look to get back into the match with a strike in the ninth. Will would get up and strike in the tenth and nine-open to finish at 208. Aaron would need to double in the tenth to get by Will, but his shot would go a bit long and leave the bucket (2-4-5-8). Aaron would go on to chop his spare attempt leaving the 5 pin to finish at 185. Harper would finish out the tenth with a strike and 5-spare for 196; this would give William Standefer his 1st AHT SFT title and $450.00 first place prize. Congrats to Harper Schmidt on 2nd place and Aaron Mendoza for 3rd place.
Thank you to everyone that came out this weekend to kick off the 2021 Summer Circuit. We will see you all next Sunday at AMF Chandler on July 25th. Hope you all have a great week!
FINALS - William Standefer vs. Aaron Mendoza vs. Harper Schmidt