Daffodil Bowl was the venue this week for our 3rd Quarter Championship sponsored by Cornforth-Campbell Carstar, Miller Lite & Heritage Bank.  There were 159 total entries with 32 bowlers making it to the Finals and Cashing!  Of those 32 bowlers, we had one married couple, Brett & Heather Schaaf, three members of one family from Ellensburg, Matt, Pam & Billie Buchholz and 17 previous 9-Tap Tour Champions! 

With the 32 Finalists, we wound up with eight of them earning 1st-Round BYE's, including our overall Top Qualifier and Storm ball winner Tong Nguyen who qualifed with a 1064 on Saturday also earning the Top Qualifier jacket which is what he's really wanted for a long time!  Also with BYE's were Bill Jones, Earl Kleist, Matt Buchholz, Pam Buchholz, Alvie Smith, Billie Buchholz & D'on Saunders.  In that 1st Round we had 24 of the Finalists shooting one game to avoid being in the bottom eight, followed by another round where the surviving 16 were joined the eight BYE's and we cut the bottom eight out again to arrive at the 'Sweet 16' for the Bracket Finals.  

The Sweet 16 was highlighted by the Sam Em -vs- Ed Berg match where Em edged Berg 265-258 while good friends James Blackand Samson Ibale matched up where Black struggled to keep up with the HOT Ibale who won by 22 pins.   

The Elite Eight match to watch was Brett Schaaf against Matt Buchholz which wound up 255-252 in favor of Schaaf  while the hard charging youngster, D'on Saunders tossed a 307 game againstSam Em who simply caught the wrong competitor at the wrong time as he was simply along for the ride! 

Front: Buchholz, Ibale, Trinka & Saunders.  Back: Schaaf, Em, Smith & Wood 

In the Final Four, Ibale knocked off Schaaf while Pete Wood ended Saunders' run at the title.

Tied for 3rd this week was Saunders who had a VERY impressive weekend!  He hadn't bowled with us since June and we understand that he's been putting in 60+ games a week and getting coached by new Pro Shop Owner Dean Richards, the improvement was very noticeable... obviously D'on wasn't expecting a BIG weekend, since he put $0 in the Pro. Pot.

Tied with D'on was Schaaf - Another bowler really improving his game... Came close to Win #3 this year! 

Ibale, Schaaf, Saunders & Wood

It's can be hard at times to come up with the right words to describe the outcome of any given tournament and this weekend at Daffodil, the final match pitted the red hot 24-time Champ, Samson Ibaleagainst an equally hot, but worn out and emotionally drained one-time Champ Pete Wood...

Championship Match: Pete Wood -vs- Samson Ibale 

We mentioned last week that Bob Matlock, Pete's very dear friendpassed away after a long and hard fought battle with cancer and Pete wasn't sure if he could summon up the energy to even bowl this weekend with his emotions being in shambles.  We can all assume that he showed up for the Finals with limited expectations after qualifying with a 979 series, but Pete dug deep and made his way through the competition, round by round, ultimately matching up with Samson in the Championship match where he simply wasn't going to lose!  When the dust settled, Wood defeated Ibale 291-184 for his 2nd Title.  When the match finished, Pete was extremely emotional, saying that it was all for Bob and even moved several onlookers to tears as well.  Pete was at a loss for words as we lucked out to even get photos and we weren't able to get much more in the way of information for the bio that we normally have the Champs fill out.  That's ok though, Pete...sometimes words aren't necessary!  Congratulations! 

Rob wanted to mention that when Pete Called him last week to share the news of Bob's passing, he commented that if Bob could pull off his 'Minor Miracle' 290 scratch game to earn a Title, in his condition... then he could Win one this weekend for Bob, AND HE DID IT!!!  Pete had Bob on his shoulder, which means that Samson was outnumbered 2 to 1.  Samson was very gracious in defeat and was sincerely happy for Pete (and Bob) 

Next week we head to Skyway Park Bowl where the Progressive Pot is HUGE at $2,201.00 while the Jackpot has jumped back up over the $3,000.0 mark!  Speaking of the Jackpot, James Strand took home $250.00 for hitting the front five taps for the consolation.