BATON ROUGE, LA – The August BR Singles Tournament at Circle Bowl saw out-of-town bowlers from four different states advance through to the semifinals.

In the end 202 average bowler Bo Edwards Sr. from Columbus, Mississippi, who averaged 230 for his 16 games, walked away with the $4,168.50 from the total prize fund of over $20,000 with a 417-380 two-game handicap match win over Jason Noell of Mobile, Alabama. Noell is a 160 average bowler who averaged 163 for 22 games of tournament play.

So with a 77 pin difference in handicap, Edwards went to work with a 222 in the opening game of the final match, virtually making up all the handicap with Noell shooting 147. Edwards shot a 172 in a low-scoring second game to comfortably win the August BR title. Noell walked away with $2,084.25.

In the semifinals, Noell defeated Justin Monteleon of Lafayette, 470-458., while in a match of big averages, Edwards got a 494-484 decision over Mykel Holliman of Memphis, Tennessee.

Holliman came in with a 243 average and Edwards opened with a 23-pin handicap advantage. Holliman posted games of 227-257 in the match, but Edwards did what he needed to do (stay close in actual score) and his 225-246 gave him the win and advance him to the finals. The two semifinalists earned $875.39.

Reaching the quarterfinal round were Daniel Kellar of Slidell, Sumner Taylor and Justin Bui of Baton Rouge and Jared Thompson of Spring, Texas. Each bowler earned $583.59.

Louisiana bowlers in the round of 16 were Daryl Askins (BR), Cory Ledet (NOLA), Wayne Mannie (Lafayette), Jeremiah Sanderson (Bossier), Brandon Trahan (BR) and Brian Yoches (BR). That was worth $333.48.

A total of 526 entries took part in this the second of three BR Singles events in the calendar year. The next one is set for December. An interesting note from the very fine tournament staff is that for this tournament there were over 250 early bird entries. This is a relatively new thing that people have really begun to take advantage of to get into a specific shift that you may want to bowl.

Josh Sander and George Goohagen had 300 games in the qualifying round, while Holliman had a 300 game in the round of 96. Goohagen’s 300 helped him to the leading qualifier spot with an 804 set, while Holliman posted 769 in his set.

The Friday night sweeper and the $500 top prize was won by Jared Thompson by three sticks over Ryan Holland, 950-947, for four games. Thompson was in third going to the final game with 723, while Ryan Holland had 731 and Eric White 747. White posted 177, Holland 216 and Thompson got through to first with 227.

Thompson won $350 for second with White taking third for $200 with a 924. Justin Veitch (916), Taylor (905), Bui (899) and Austin Bertrand ($60) were the other cashers.

Strike Out

The Capital City Strike Out is back for its seventh go around on Sept. 1-2 at All-Star Lanes and this event is unique in that there is a nine-game qualifier over two days on three different lane conditions. There are two three-game blocks starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 1 with a three-game block at 8 a.m. on Sunday before the double-elimination finals begin. Based on entries, the top scholarship prize can be as much as $500 per division with a possible $750 first place in the U20 boys if there are 50 entries.

Last year’s event paid out over $4,500 in scholarships, so when you throw in the large amount the state match games paid at the end of last month, these two tournaments can really help someone’s college fund.

Also, this year’s U15 and U12 divisions will be boys/girls and the Europe/Asia handicap conversion will be used with girls receiving a 7-pins handicap per game, the patterns will not be announced in advance.

Those are a couple of little twists that should make things a little more interesting this year.

Honor roll notes

Tyler Wright had the best set of the week with a 791 at Premier Lanes with a 280 high game, while Cassandra LaCour led the ladies with 721, also at the same center. Eddie Balser’s 560 (205) led the youth leagues, while in the senior leagues Stephen McIntyre rolled 665 and Patsy Dew 646.

If you are interested in league bowling, now is the time to call your favorite bowling center and see what might be a good league to get involved in. They are all starting within the next few weeks and there are spots that centers would love to help you get involved with.

We are back on Aug. 28 and until then, good luck and good bowling.

BATON ROUGE, LA – Have to admit, it’s pretty amazing. A couple of weeks ago, he was 10 pins shy of the city record at All-Star Lanes.

Sunday, Juan Coston, Jr., was the last bowler standing in a field of 521 to win the top prize of $3,809 in the December BR Singles event at Circle Bowl.

Coston beat Houston bowler Ryan Holland, 440-381 in the final two-game match to capture the top prize. Coston entered with a current average of 230 and averaged 241 for his 16 games. Holland, a 222 average bowler, averaged 215 for his 16 games of bowling and collected $1,904.50 for second.

It was a good tourney for local bowlers with five of the top eight spot and the two semifinals have to be given a lot of congratulations.

Her father, and her mother, are used to being in the top of events like this, but Summer Juneau continues to show she is going to be one to keep an eye on. She came in with a 196 average and posted 207 for the tournament, losing to Holland in her semifinal match, 355-324. Joseph Hendrick III of Baton Rouge averaged 186 off a 167 entering average and lost to Coston, 510-434, in that semi. Both picked up nice checks of $799.89.

Gregory Snee and Ryan White were the two local quarterfinalists cashing for $533.26, while Cameron Bennett of Alexandria, Brek Cupp and Daniel Nelson of New Orleans, Billy King of Lake Charles and Steve Burger of Baton Rouge got to the round of 16 to earn $304.72.

Justin Bui had the first 21 strikes in his qualifying and easily made the first day cut. Jacob Garretson also had a 300 game along the way.

In the Friday night sweeper, it was a case of building a big lead and hanging on for the $450 top prize as Marshall Morrison opened with games of 268, 268 and 245 for a fairly comfortable lead. Morrison threw 208 in the final game to finish at 989, but Bui, after games of 258, 206, 245 put a 279 on the board and finished just one pin behind in second at 988. Still it was a $300 payday for Bui.

Jessie Thibodaux posted 932 to earn $190 for third, while Steve Burger posted 925 for fourth ($130) and BR runner-up Holland had 887 for $90 and fifth place.

The next BR tournament is set for March.

Bowling on TV

Bowler’s Journal put out a spread on the television broadcasts for the 2017-18 contract season between Dec. 10 (this Sunday) and Oct. 31, 2018 and it is pretty extensive and impressive.

The events through Jan. 7 on ESPN will be from the recently completed World Series of Bowling in Reno which were possibly seen live on the Watch ESPN app. That including the PBA World Championship, the final major of 2017 on Sunday, Dec. 31, at noon.

The schedule resumes with the CP3 PBA Celebrity Invitational which moves to Christ Paul’s new NBA playing home of Houston. Taped last week, that show airs on Feb. 4 before three straight weeks of live bowling with the Tournament of Champions, the 60th Anniversary Classic and the PBA Players Championship.

The USBC Masters moves to April this year prior to the start of the PBA League.

CBSSN’s coverage will begin April 24 with the Intercollegiate shows and their coverage will include the USBC Queens (May 22), the two U.S. Opens (June 30, Oct. 31) and this year five other PWBA Tour stops that will be decided at the bowling center the tournament started in.

It’s ambitious schedule for both networks, but will give bowling fans a good variety of shows that hopefully will be fun and entertaining. Reports are the shows from Reno will have lots of surprises.

Honor roll notes

More great stuff on the lanes over the last couple of weeks topped by the 809 (275) by Eric White and Gregory Snee with another 300 and an 803 set. TJ Wheeler, D’Lara Carter and Wiley Williams had 300 games, as did Duke Koontz and Jacob Garretson.

Three ladies posted 700 sets — Tiffany Blackwell 715 (268); Mary Mansur 710 (279) and Stacy Cox 701 (264). Hannah Grather in the youth leagues posted 709 and George Smith had 705 in the senior leagues.

Craig Santangelo posted a 298 game and Chad Conard 299 in near misses to the 300 scoring parade.

Still waiting on city tournament results to become official and once we get those we will pass them along. Back with our final column of 2017 on Dec. 19. Until then, good luck and good bowling.

BATON ROUGE, LA – Well, let’s see what happens this time around.

The stories that can be told about the Baton Rouge Singles tournament even back to when it was the Baskin Robbins tournament many years ago could make a small book. But it continues to be an event  people from various states and the local area can’t stay away from.

So how will it go this time? This time it’s slate for Circle Bowl on Dec. 3-4. Qualifying is 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Dec. 3 and 1, 4, 6 and 8 p.m. with semifinals on Dec. 4 before the 32-player bracket finals.

The young guns win NOLA

We saw many of them as they grew up as high school and youth bowlers. They were good then and they were winners then. Many of them have proven to be winners as adult bowlers, where money and prestige are sometimes harder to achieve. Many of them have also handled their ascension to adult bowling with a lot of class and really brought new blood to the sport.

Many of them are sons of bowlers following family members, which is a really nice thing to see as well.

Sunday in New Orleans was the final 2016 event of the NOLA Tour. Justin Bui posted another win, this time with Jacob Garretson.

Bui and Garretson won the title 211-209 in the Baker stepladder final match over Bobby Werthmann and Curt Dupre IV. Tyler Wright and BJ Autin took third.

Juneau Memorial dates set

The first big event of 2017 will be the Jon Juneau Memorial Scratch Masters on 27-29 at Circle Bowl. It’s hard to believe this will be 17th time this event has been held. Bui will be trying to become one of the few to put his name on the permanent plaque multiple times.

No video please

It appears the United States Bowling Congress is serious about keeping the bowling pattern serious for the 2017 Open Championships in Las Vegas and the 2017 Women’s Championship here in Baton Rouge. It was revealed on a Facebook post for the 2017 events that there will be some restrictive video policies that will include live Facebook streaming or videoing bowlers in practice during the competition.

The company that people can pay to have their event tape will still be operative but the DVDs will not be shipped until the tournament is over.

I can’t wait to see how often people are going to have to go into the stands to stop people from videoing on their phones. Special moments like final shots of 300 attempts will be allowed but only short videos. That’s why next year no broadcasts will be conducted by the USBC on their Bowl.com page.

This event here is getting more complicated by the minute.

In other news for 2017, the River Center will host a Louisiana USBC Youth Tournament that will qualify bowlers for the national junior gold event on April 8. It may seem early to announce this but the news is that the event will be held on the River Center lanes installed for the women’s championship. Entries are at the centers and spots are limited.

Honor roll notes

There are lots of 300 games in the honor roll notes with Justin Vappie, Jason Graham, Gregory Snee, Bui and Tyler Wright rolling perfect games. Mark Saale just missed with 299, while senior bowler Glynn Nickens had 11-in-a-row. Also Linda Walsh picked up the 7-10 split while senior bowler Wendy Drennan had a first 200 with a 208 off a 114 average. Senior bowler Iry LeBeau was 50 pins over average.

Please check out all the great scores on our honor roll. We will have city tournament results (where there were more great scores) in our next column on Dec. 6.

Until then good luck and good bowling.

BATON ROUGE, LA – The oldest non-association-sponsored tournament in Baton Rouge returns for its second renewal of 2014 Saturday and Sunday at Circle Bowl, and some of the numbers the bowling center has recently announced are staggering.

In about 40 years of bowling, as much as four times a year, at the BR Singles Tournament, which for years was sponsored as the Baskin Robbins Tournament, there have been over 50,000 entries with a total prize return of over $1.5 million.

The numbers when expressed in that form are staggering. But what has made the tournament special in my mind are a couple of things. First, the fact that bowlers routinely come from several states to compete for a prize fund that can easily top $15,000-$18,000. Secondly, the fact that high handicap bowlers, men, women, two-handers — in other words, anyone — can win if it is their day.

In March, Baton Rouge bowler Steven Taylor won $1,901 by defeating Justin Veitch of New Orleans in the championship round.

Shifts begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, and there is a major rules change to help shifts begin on time. All bowlers are asked to print and bring their own average verification from Bowl.com. The semifinals and finals are Sunday.

State tournament results

There was not a lot of good news for Baton Rouge area bowlers in the state tourney that concluded in Shreveport-Bossier City. A team from Lafayette (the Ball Busters) won scratch and handicap with scores of 2,857 and 2,999. A rarity took place in doubles as Andre and Kirk Trahan of the Bayou Region tied Nicholas and James Campbell of the Northeast Region. Both teams totaled 1,500.

In handicap singles, Brett LeJeune of Lafayette won with 834, while John Montgomery had 781 for the top Baton Rouge score. On the scratch side, Jason Courville of New Iberia had 747, while Brian Yoches of Baton Rouge had 742.

In all-events, Burl Brown III of the CenLa Association rolled 2,256 with handicap. Glenn Coffey of Lafayette was third at 2,236, while Thomas Miller of Baton Rouge was sixth at 2,205. Andre’ Trahan won scratch all-events at 2,211 with Miller fourth at 2,085 and Glenn Wilson of New Orleans fifth at 2,063.

Complete results can be found at louisianastateusbc.com.

USBC Queens show

Kelly Kulick averaged 257 for the first three games at the National Bowling Stadium last week in the USBC Queens but then lost to the top seed, Maria Jose Rodriguez of Colombia, 190-189 in a match with several strange turns.

Let me say, I watched Kulick bowl in the USBC Open when I was in Reno at the NBS in late April, and she was stringing strikes then. So I was not surprised with the ease in which she struck in the first three matches. But then things began to change.

As the championship match was starting, the live broadcast disappeared completely off ESPN2. In fact, the channel was completely off the air. Apparently thunderstorms in Bristol caused the issue, but ESPN remained on the air showing the live home run derby from Omaha, Nebraska. Again, another bad break on what was an outstanding live bowling show.

The bowling was stopped for a time (which USBC friend Lucas Wiseman called “minimal” in a Twitter response) but began again before television could get back. When the coverage resumed, Kulick’s ball reaction had apparently disappeared about the same time as the broadcast went dark.

In desperate need of marks, she left a pocket 7-10 in the ninth. And needing a double in the final frame to win, left a rather weak 10 and almost another 7-10 in the pocket. It really hasn’t been mentioned too much that her failure to get either pin on the second ball in the ninth could have given her an easier shot to tie the match, which she lost by a pin.

Kulick was trying to become the third bowler to win the Queens three times, while Rodriquez was the second straight foreign bowler to take the title.

Honor roll notes

The top scores came at Premier Lanes as Erik Konow Sr. rolled a 299 game en route to an 805 series. Lynette Broussard had 694 (278) for the women. Austin Bertrand rolled his first 700, a 721 (233, 235, 253) to lead the youth leagues, while Loyd Hutchinson had 691 and Cheryl Albarez 663 in the senior leagues.

Speaking of senior bowlers, here is congrats to Ron Paille, Jerry Wagener and Bob Boudreaux, who were 50 pins over average for their series.

There are a lot of local and area bowlers heading to the Buffalo, New York, area for the Junior Gold Nationals and other important events. We wish them well. We’ll take a look at a new youth event set for next year and BR Singles Tournament results when we join you July 22. Until then, good luck and good bowling.