It was almost as if he'd done this before . . .
Congratulations to Michael Martell for winning today's "The Bowlage Classic" PBA-Style Scratch Tournament from Herrill Lanes. Martell bowled superbly throughout the day in beating the 41-person field and taking home his first Bowlage chip. But it didn't come without it's share of twists and turns.
Bowling on a dual pattern with the left lane being a 45-foot Route 66 Kegel Pattern and the right lane being a 35-foot Boardwalk Pattern, it was anything but easy as the lanes played very tricky for everyone. Martell started qualifying as you would expect, pumping out games of 202 and 222, but with the cutline being a rather pedestrian -11 for those first 2 games with the Top 16 making Match play, it seemed like just shooting over would be enough. And it was. Martell finished the 4-game qualifying round with a 235 and 177 to shoot +36, good enough for the 6 seed headed into the Match Play rounds. Scott Kampf actually paced the way during the opening round, shooting +165 for those 4, and with the qualifying rounds rolling over into Match Play, it seemed he'd be the man to beat. However Kampf struggled at the onset and the field quickly caught up.
The Match Play round consisted of 3 singles matches with bonus pins awarded to the winner of each match. Martell faced Peter Distefano in the opening match and took the win 219 (+30 bonus pins) - 188. In the second match, Martell knocked off Michael Perrone, 253 (+30) - 179 and he finished a perfect 3-0 with a third round win over Tim Lau, 209 (+30) - 174. With those 3 wins, Martell captured the number one seed going into the Stepladder Finals. The other 4 finalists in order of seed were Danielle Merino (+201 for 6), Justin Kampf (+179), Scott Kampf (+178) and Saul Marcus (+162).
In the first round of Steps, Scott Kampf got out to a very inauspicious start, but clawed his way back with a triple. However, Marcus kept the pressure on by filling frames and ended up taking the win, 211 - 189. Marcus then faced the other Kampf brother, Justin, and both bowlers started the quarters with 5-baggers right out the gate, but Justin proved too much down the stretch in taking the win 229 - 219. In the semis, Justin faced off against #2 seed Danielle Merino. Kampf gof off to a great start, however Merino wasn't about to give up, throwing a 4 bagger late in the game to force Kampf to mark in the tenth. Justin was not about to be denied though and struck on his first ball of the tenth, leading to a 236 - 223 win and setting up a mega-final match with Michael Martell. In the title match, Martell quickly gave Kampf a cushion by starting the game with a split, leading to an open frame. Kampf took advantage by starting with a spare - triple, but he got a little slow in the fifth frame leading to a 4-6-7 split and with Martell throwing the next 4 strikes, the match seesawed back towards Mike. In the seventh frame, Kampf gave Martell even more insurance with another open frame and it looked as if the match might be over, but Justin finished the game with a 4-bagger, which forced Martell to mark in the tenth. With all of the pressure squarely on him, the PBA bowler responded by crushing the first strike in the tenth and took the win and the title, 226 - 222.
Martell's win earned him the $1,100 paycheck. The other 4 finalists earned $700, $400, $250 and $160. Congratulations to all bowlers on another fantastic turnout. Stay tuned for the next Bowlage event, with details being provided in the coming days.
Below is video of the stepladder finals matches:
