As expected, the soft backends at Narrows gave our bowlers a challenging but very playable conditions, for our ‘Best 3 of 4’ Tournament.  Scores increased, a record was broken and our Champion was Vindicated!  The Tour only saw three scores climb over that 800 mark while the cut score was settling in the low 700’s all day.  The 9-Tap Jackpot saw a number of bowlers log jammed at 3 Taps once again until the jam was breached by 3 bowlers (Dale Coleman, Bob Berryman & Sonya Gutowski) taking our pot for $450.00 ($150.00 each).  The 9-Tap Jackpot will once again be over $8,000.00 waiting for you at Hiline next week.  

This week’s Champion is Paul Bitzer.  This isn’t his first 1stPlace finish; however, it is his first Singles Championship.  Previously he had won a doubles tournament also here at Narrows.  Of course, for those who may not know the story… Paul was the person last year, who managed to roll the front SEVEN 9-Taps, but failed to get into the9-Tap Jackpot.  This time, Mr. Bitzer decided he was going to get into everything, including bowling all three squads.  In his first attempt, his scores were enough to cash but not enough to win.  He looked at the leading score after the 2nd Squad, and decided to bowl again anyway.  This brings to mind the old saying, “it’s never over until it is over”.  So he tried again, and in the 3rd Squad he not only got into a Mind Blowing Groove winning the Tournament with a strong 873, he also won the High Scratch Series with a 1073, the High Scratch Game with a 300 and all his brackets and Paul became the 1st Member EVER to win ALL FOUR HIGH GAME POTS in one squad.  He is still working on those 9-Taps, but in the meantime, Paul will be taking home a nice combination of cash and check totaling over $2,500.00.  Paul was throwing his Hammer ‘Jet Black’ bowling ball, that he just picked up this week and had drilled by Dave Martin at Bowl Arena (Ft.Lewis).  Paul would like to thank Eric Pham for his help and support.  OUTSTANDING bowling Paul!

In 2nd Place was Ken McAllister.  Ken shot a beautiful 847 in the second squad giving him a check for a nice $1,014.00, for his efforts.  Based on how the scoring was going for the day, it really looked like this score was going to be good enough to win.  Needless to say Ken was keeping an eye on his competition and was not counting his chickens before they hatched.  This was still a great effort and on any other day, this would have been good enough for a winner.  Our 3rd Place shooter is someone that is starting to make this a habit.  Mholee Divina was hoping to etch another notch on his belt with another win in three weeks.  He came close being only 1 of 3 that managed to shoot over 800.  Mholee managed to shoot an 808 in the 2nd squad giving the first place a run for its money.  With that score, he will taking home $459.00.  Not bad for a days work.

While all our 9-Tap bowlers were busy trying to put their games together to try to achieve that elusive 1st Place prize, we received a call during our 2nd Squad from our friends in Hawaii.  We were informed that one of our long time bowlers of the Puget Sound 9-Tap family, Pearl Sedeno, bowled an awesome 1212 in their tournament, establishing a record in our Hawaii Division.  CONGRATULATIONS to Pearl.