Behind the Numbers: 2012 Citizen Masters part 2
This past weekend at Starlite Lanes showed what this tournament is all about. There wasn't much room to move around in the association's largest center and that's what we like to see. There was lots of high scoring matches, some upsets and some great come backs.
Of the eight former champions with multiple titles, only one of them are still in the winner's bracket(Ryan)and one of them are still alive in the loser's bracket(Knapp). Of the five former champions with one title, three of them are still in the winner's bracket(Suslik, Tabone & Lambrecht) while two of them are still alive in the loser's bracket(Poormon and Liccion). The four former Runner's Up still have three remaining, Cory Slater in the Winners bracket while Dan Guzalak and Kevin Ashby are in the Loser's bracket.
We had two sets of Father/Son and two sets of Brother/Brother teams that entered match play this weekend. Dale & Todd Weigand are still alive in the loser's bracket. They could possibly meet each other on Sunday. Also, Greg and Dan Bibbens are still alive with Greg still in the winners while Dan Bibbens is in the Loser's bracket. They wouldn't meet until the final weekend.
New faces are always good to see every year. Out of the 13 first time qualifiers, 10 are still alive in the tournament. Three of them have a record of 2-0 after this weekend, Chris Gomez, Nate Breese and Josh Devlin. Josh bowls in league at Rainbow Lanes, will that be an advantage for him? The other seven suffered a loss over the weekend but still have hopes to become a champion, they are: Corey Dockstader, Nick Bolak, Joe Nadherny, Tom Winslow, Wayne Clark and even a match up between Scott Thomas and Todd Weigand (both bowl at Rainbow as well). Good luck to these bowlers and hopefully we will see some in the finals.
One of the featured matches on Saturday ended up being a very high scoring match. Ed Wasilenko and Jeff Farrelly threw some big numbers at each other all day long but Ed ended with the upper hand for the day, 737-693. Mike Rouse and Steve Walawender had the closest match of the day. After two games, Steve had a 37 pin lead on Mike. In the third game, Mike rallied but fell 2 pins short to steal the victory in game 3 and ended up in a high scoring match, 689-687.
Sunday's matches showed more close matches and comebacks than Saturday. First off, I would like to congratulate Rick Lambrecht on a very fine 802 series. That currently leads the Alfred “Gale” Stanley Memorial award for the highest series bowled in the Masters tournament. In the highest scoring match of the day, Shawn Hastings beat out Mike Rouse, 758-719. In another heart breaking match, defending Champion Tom Knapp lost to 2005 Runner up Cory Slater. Cory trailed Tom after two games, 474-493 and rallied in the third game firing strike after strike at Tom, winning the third game 255-216 and the match 729-709. There were three matches this weekend where a 700 series didn't earn a win. Rick Liccion recovered nicely from his 711 series loss on Saturday He even had a come from behind close victory while beating Ed Hess 656-643 and overcame a 21 pin deficit. The match between former Runner ups, Dan Guzalak and Mike Crowley kept things fairly close but at the end it was Guzalak beating out Crowley, 646-602. In the closest match of the day, Rick Chalupnicki bowled against Dick Bobbett. It was a seesaw battle and after two games, Chalupnicki trailed Bobbett by only one pin. Still being close at the end of the match, it was Chalupnicki edging out a close game, 203-195 for a 7 pin victory. Nick Kilmer trailed Todd Weigand by 18 pins but threw a very nice 255 in game three to comeback and earn a victory by 40 pins, 673-633.
In a rematch from last year, Kevin Ashby is one up on Shaun Cronin. He beat Shaun 698-630 at Starlite Lanes last year in the final weekend. Will Shaun even up the series at Falcon Lanes? Come down and cheer everyone on this Saturday. I'm sure we will see some great scores and great pressure packed matches