Before the day started, he wasn't even sure he was gonna make it. By the end of the day, he won it!
Congratulations to Chris "Ponchy" Aponte for winning today's By the Dozen 12-Game Marathon at Herrill Lanes. Bowling on the 44' Big Ben oil pattern, Aponte was up to the challenge from the very beginning. In what became a seesaw battle for first and second throughout, Aponte started off strong, firing off games of 245, 268 and 277 for the first 3, his 790 leading the way. However, he slowed down (a bit) for the next 3, shooting 225, 236 and 225, and after 6 games, he found himself in 3rd, trailing Jeremy Milito and Jesse Gibson. And the battle only got harder, as Milito fired off a perfect game 300 in Game 8 to take a 50+ pin lead with 4 games to go.
So how did Aponte respond? Well, with his own perfect game 300 in Game 9 of course! And with Milito shooting 196 in Game 9, Aponte recaptured the lead headed into the final quarter. Aponte went 226 and 235 in Games 10 and 11 with Milito going 258 and 232 and headed into the final game, Aponte held the slightest of edges, up by 5 total pins!
Aponte started his final game first and went 242, forcing Milito to fire off a strong game to try and snag the win. However, Milito fell short with a 214 and Aponte was able to take home his first ever Bowlage.com Pattern Series chip with a 2993 for 12 games, an average of just over 249 for the entire tournament!!!
With the win, Aponte took home the $1,650 first place prize as well as the trophy. The tournament had 40 total entries and paid out 6 places. Rounding out the cashers list was (in order): Milito (2960), Owen Darby (2925), Mike Mirabile (2865), Brian Cavey (2829) and Michael Martell (2761). Congrats to everyone on another successful tournament and stay tuned for the upcoming August 27th Radioactive Tournament from Lodi Lanes.
