Each and every year, we start off our Year End Championship with our annual awards ceremony as we honor the numerous outstanding achievements during the year.  If we could, we'd hand out awards to all of our Tour Members as weappreciate each and every one of you and couldn't put on tournaments nearly every week without you!  This week, we had 82 bowlers in our unique 3-game format, with 16 ultimately making the Stepladder bracket Finals.  Our Top Qualifier wound up being an elated Andy Snow who fired a 781 series!  We then surprised Andy with a voucher from Storm Bowlingfor a new ball of his choice!  Congratulations to Andy and Thank You to Storm!

We kicked off our awards celebration by announcing the Top 10 from the '2016 Bowler of the Year' race and since most everyone knew who the winner was, we decided to announce the Top 10 in reverse order for a little extra suspense!  We had not one, but TWO Dan's (Dan Grass & Dan Watts) in the 9 & 10 spots and we go back several weeks when Watts starting asking Steve & Rob if he was in the Top 10.  As you all know, we don't want to ruin the surprise for anyone, so we couldn't tell Mr. Watts whether or not he had made it.  Of course, Steve had to tease Dan a little leading up to the announcement and imagine the sigh of relief for Dan as he couldn't have been more happy to make our Top 10!  Below is a group photo of this Year's Top 10 (minus Samson Ibale)  Our BOTY winner,James Black led the standings for much of the season, taking the air out of the suspense.  This is BOTY Title #2 for Black as he is the first on Tour to earn TWOBOTY Titles!  Congratulations, James...It was a Great year for you! 

Bob Rouse is one of the Tour's original members (#35) and has bowled with us since 2002.  With FIVE Career Titles and nearly $27,000.00 in Career Earnings, Bob has been on the Hall of Fame ballot for the laft few years.  This year, it is with GREAT PLEASURE that we were able to welcome Bob into the 9-Tap TourHall of Fame!  Making the day even more special for Bob was that Saturday was his Mom's 96th birthday and Bob was so excited to be able to go home and tell her about it!  Congratulations, Bob...We couldn't be happier for you! 

As we moved on in our presentation, here are some other awards given out:

Top Woman Bowler

~ Donna Columbo ~

Most Improved Bowlers

~ Dan Watts & Dan Grass (Both 10+ pins) ~

Most Cashes

~ Thang Duc Thai (27, Wow!) ~

Top Rookies

~ Jenna Thompson & Krisha Naff ~

Rookie of the Year

~ Oscar Gestoso ~

$20K Club

~ James Strand - Rollie Abella ~

~ Patrick Dennis - Pearl Sedeno ~

$30K Club

~ James Black & Jon Schneider ~

 

 

As you can see, we had no shortage of photos to share from Saturday and after all of that we still had a Tournament to follow and there was some incredible drama...Including Kai Pedro & Cal Fisher shooting 300 games where last week's winner, Cal fired his in the round of 16! 

Let's get right to it!  Leslie Farrow was the only final 16 competitor that was without a Title entering the bracket finals and he had a Super day, which ended as he faced off with eventual runner-up Willie Manning, Jr.  In that semi-final match, Willie defeated Leslie 251-238.  In the other semi-final, it was equally  as exciting as Brian Kuykendall edged out Gary Van Ness 243-226.  Farrow & Van Ness both had incredible days and if not for one errant shot, either of them could have easily made it to the Final.  Moving on to the Final, after Manning, Jr. and Kuykendall both scored BIG all day long, the final match was a little less exciting for the large group who stuck around to watch.  Perhaps the final lane change for both and fatigue showed up, but whatever the case, Kuykendall survived, beating Manning, Jr. 207-182 to take the Title!  Willie had to be happy with the monster 2nd Place $1,024.00 check as he bowed out, capping a crazy good year for himself where he had THREE Titles and TWO 2nd Place finishes! 

Brian Kuykendall ended 2016 in a BIG way as he takes the Year-End Championship after having won his 1st Title just a few short weeks ago!  With his good luck charm, Cheryl Schultz on hand, Brian got it done on Saturday averaging 225+ in 7 total games to earn the YEC pennant, of which we're struggling to see if we'll be able to fit his long name on.  Kuykendall pockets$2,048.00 for his win which we're certain will come very handy this Holiday season!  Congratulations, Brian!