As qualifying for Tour's Year-end awards closed out this week, two things are for sure: 1/ The suspense for who gets the nod for this year's'Hall of Fame' induction has come down to yet another very close vote...and 2/ The 'Bowler of the Year' results are in and there is plenty of suspense for both who won as well as who is in the Top 10.  While both questions already have answers, we do still have two tournaments to go before 12/16 at HiLine Lanes where all of the answers will be revealed at our Year-End Championship.

 

Two Clutch Performers!  Who will be B.O.Y., Huyen or Earl? 

While we already know who the Top 2 will be for B.O.Y., it's all about their clutch performances in what has become arguably the most exciting competitions in Tour history!  Earl Kleist held the lead for many months, then after the Vets Day Tournament two weeks ago, Huyen Thaipulled to within 1/10th of a point.  Ironically, in 2015 it was Huyen who held the lead (all year) going into the last couple of weeks whenSamson Ibale caught him.  Last week, Huyen took the lead with a BIG 'MUST' win at Secoma Lanes as he moved into the lead going intoSaturday at Narrows Plaza where it was the last chance for Earl to gain on Huyen or for Huyen to pad his lead... 

Well, Earl got it done this week with a 'MUST' win of his own (details below), so now it all depends on whether he earned enough points to steal the lead back from Huyen.  Keep in mind that Huyen's win last week was in a tourney with 129 entries.  This week, there were just 85...We know!  It can all be a bit confusing, but we'll all know on 12/16 when the final results are announced! 

More clutch performances took place on Saturday as Patrick Dennis was a week early for the 'Best 3 of 4' format as he had that one game which likely costed him his 8th title.  Patrick actually flirted with a TRUE 300 gameand finished 278-278 for his 4th Place 989 series.  Samson Ibale had a very impressive showing on his way to 3rd Place with a 997, earning $413.00 and ending a bit of a hiatus from the Cash List as he had his bonus pin total up to the max 5 pins.  Besides our eventual Champ, Will Cotton was the only other bowler to break 1000 this week as Deb & Michael (his personal fan club)  were on hand to witness one of his best performances as he shot 1012 for 2nd Place and $822.00.  Great Bowling Patrick, Samson & Will!!! 

As we mentioned earlier, Earl Kleist earned yetanother Title to his already storied career!  Mixing in a 300 9-tap game for a 309 net game contributed to his crazy good 1065 series! That's $1,843.00 in earnings this week for Earl, another $230.00 from the scratch pot and a few bracket table/high game pot wins!  This was Earl's 2nd win of 2017 and he raised his Career Earnings to $57,347.00, not counting his $10k+ in 9-Tap Jackpot wins!  Earl used his Storm 'Snap Lock'ball and wore his Dexter SST shoes to earn TITLE #11!  Congrats Earl! 

Almost forgot to mention that Ron Barker had the front five 9-taps, earning $250.00 from the Jackpot as the totals pushed to $6,241.00 for next week!