BATON ROUGE, LA – Greg Walters of Slidell took top honors in the $16,000 BR Singles event this past weekend at Circle Bowl in Baton Rouge.
Walters, who entered with a 180 average, downed Kristopher Kling in the final match of the 32-player elimination finals, 448-392, to win the $3,671.25 first prize check. Kling, a 161 average bowler, took $1,835.63 for second place. Walters posted games of 190-195 scratch to take the title.
In the semifinals, Walters defeated Brian Domec of Lafayette, 487-371; and Kling took down Michael Simpson of Slidell, 519-413. Each of the semifinalists won $770.96.
Butch Cormier of Lafayette, Aaron Jones of Lake Charles, Pam White of Baton Rouge and Shawn Maldonado of Houston advanced to the quarterfinal round to take home $513.98. Maldonado led the qualifying with a series of 800 on games of 264-300-236. Again, showing the nature of this tournament the first cut at the end of Saturday was a pretty high 676.
In the top 16 from the state were Jagger Benoit of Lafayette, Robbie Blackwell, Chad Conard, Jack Snee and Gregory Snee of Baton Rouge and Corey LaRocca of Lake Charles. All earned $293.70.
The entry total was 475 for the event, the final one of 2018 for this series of tournaments which continues in March.
BR Sweeper
The Friday night companion event to the BR Singles has continued to be a success in its first year or so as a four-game scratch sweeper at Circle. This time Jeff Cannella won the event and the $420 first prize with games of 258-268-269-215 for a four-game total of 1,010 (that’s a 252 average by the way).
He won the event with space to spare as Sumner Taylor took second with a nice 962 to earn $280 for second place.
Also cashing were Craig Conley, $170; Chad Conard (299 high game), $120, and Shawn Maldonado with 898, $90.
This has turned into a nice event with a good payout and the Grand Prix Scholarship program gets a small donation from each entry so that’s a good thing as well.
SSABA in Shreveport
The Senior All-Star Bowling Association was in Shreveport at All-Star Lanes this past weekend for a member-guest doubles, with Lee Lorts and Terence McQueen taking top honors with Mark Busscher and Rick Justice in second. Lorts, the SASBA member from Katy, Texas, won his second title. Busscher from Alvin, Texas is a nine-time SASBA winner. First prize was $2,330
Couple of area bowlers were in the cashers as guests with Justin Veitch of Kenner teaming with John Chovanec to finish eighth earning $760 and Baton Rouge’s Justin Bui teamed with member Derek Williams to take 12th and $620.
On the 2019 SASBA schedule are a couple of Louisiana stops the first part of the year: the Claude Thomas Memorial Singles in Shreveport Feb. 23-24 and in Kenner in May for a trio event.
NOLA Doubles
Sumner Taylor and Tyler Wright won the final NOLA Bowling Scratch Sweeper Tour event at the end of last month at AMF All-Star in Kenner. Curt Dupre and Trey Field placed second, while defeating Juan Coston and Jacob Garretson in the third-place match.
PBA season almost here
They will tape the event Dec. 10, but it is almost time for the new era of professional bowling on television coming to FOX Sports on Dec. 23 with the PBA Clash that will follow the NFL that day.
Ryan Shafer in a recent TV interview said of the FOX deal with the PBA, “It means a lot more promotion. A lot more money for the players so it’s looking good.”
Following that event, the 2019 PGA Tour starts on Sunday, Jan. 6 with the Hall of Fame Classic at the International Training and Research Center in Arlington, Texas at 10 a.m. CT live on FS1.
There will be live events on Jan. 6, 13 and 27 with the finals of the Mark Roth-Marshall Holman Doubles taped the week before on Jan. 20.
Honor roll notes
Craig Conley and Justin Bui led the way with 757 sets (Conley’s high was a 268 and Bui at 279), while Jeff Cannella, Dick Loudenslager and Hollywood Roe each had perfect 300 games in their set. Frederick Taylor and Alan Addison just missed perfect games with 298 postings. Sarah Broussard had the top women’s score of 735 (268) and Ty Quibodeaux had the best youth set of 575. The senior leagues were led by Jay Scardina (674) and Patsy Dew (633).
We are back with the final bowling column of 2018 on Dec. 18 when we will try to tell you all we can about high school bowling power rankings. Until then, good luck and good bowling.