A Tournament That Was So Cool To Watch Left Me So Sad I Could Not Bowl In It
Each of the last 3 years the ELITE Bowling Pro Shop has hosted a client-only VIP party that allows us to give thanks to the people who continue to make us successful by allowing us into their games to make them successful.
In their honor, we host this event as a year-ending party with tons of raffled items and silent auction prizes to be won. Each of the past 3 years we’ve attached a charity component that you can read about here.
New to the VIP weekend events, Saturday was kicked off with a "draft" team tournament where my selected celebrities picked players to make up their 3-person team. This isn’t a new concept; I actually borrowed the idea from the Greater Milwaukee BA to run this event.
While picking a superstar loaded team seems logical, one caveat to the conditions the captains were under in the draft was an average “cap” set at the mean of all entered bowlers. To make things more challenging, if a team went over the cap they had to give back 150% of the difference in team average each game.
The logical thought I heard from many captains is you either had to be the first pick in the draft or near the 16th pick in the draft when the draft order was 1 through 16, then 16 back down to 1. The common thought was if you get your first choice in the draft you would be “stuck” with the last person in the draft who could theoretically put you over the cap and you had no choice in the matter. If you draft closer to 16 you would have more control over who you had left to pick from since your picks would have more people to choose from.
Interestingly 5 of the first 6 picks in the draft made the finals and no team over pick 9 made the finals. Had it not been for a trainwreck last game, the 15th seeded team was leading after game 3 and fell to 7th position after game 4.
In the end, the team of Pat Georgia of Green Bay, Kristin Delano of Whitewater and captain Scott Huenink of Hartland defeated Janeen Meifert of West Bend, Russ Voege of Sheboygan and Chad Maas of Waukesha 697 – 645 in the finals. Pat/Kristin/Scott also won the bet-you-win pot.
Check into these links for full results on:
· Results after qualifying – here
· Playoff bracket results – here
· Individual scores the first 3 games – here
· Scratch pot results – here
Leading the first round of qualifying with a 299 game and an 805 series was Ben Cleveland of Sheboygan. Ben took a lesson with Chris Sand Friday and the results were an immediate payoff for him and his stellar start to the day. Following Ben were Jeff Shircel of Kohler (783), Paul Gloede of Plymouth (773), Jay Larson of Sheboygan (761) and Chris VanAkkeren of Chilton (759).
Here are the playoff results:
Round 1
#5 seed Beth Blanck of Hartland, Tim Scharbius of Wausau and Amber Loberger of Fond du Lac
Upset
#4 seed Mike Meifert of West Bend, Mike Lohse of Sheboygan and Chris Sand of Detroit 651 – 642
#6 seed Janeen Meifert, Russ Voege, Chad Maas
Upset
#3 seed Steve Meifert of Plymouth, Eric Pierson of West Bend, Bryan Schnettler of Cedarburg 666 – 612
Round 2
#1 seed Pat Georgia, Kristin Delano, Scott Huenink
Defeated
#5 seed Beth Blanck, Tim Scharbius, Amber Loberger 750 – 744
#6 seed Janeen Meifert, Russ Voege, Chad Maas
Upset
#2 seed Chris Meifert of Plymouth, Jeff Shircel of Kohler, Jay Larson of Sheboygan 630 – 621