Hess & LaCaze win Insidebowling.com Baker Doubles
PBA Tour champions Tom Hess and Anthony LaCaze had to be among the pre-tournament favorites heading into last weekend's Insidebowling.com Baker Doubles Tournament at North Oaks Bowl in the St. Louis suburb of Normandy, Mo.
And while they won, it was far from an easy journey, as they didn't grab the lead and ensure themselves a spot in Sunday's semifinals until their third effort at qualifying on the late night squad on Saturday – more than 12 hours after they had started on the first qualifying squad.
The tournament and its interesting format of Baker Doubles with one lane on a pair having an easy house pattern and the other a difficult Sport-type pattern drew other big names besides the winners, including PBA Tour champions Mike Wolfe and Brian Himmler, former PBA exempt player Mitch Beasley, current exempt player Brian Valenta, and IB.com Open champion Jake Peters.
Counting re-entries, the tournament drew 56 entries, with 24 coming from outside the St. Louis area. A dozen bowled at 9 a.m., 25 at 1:30 p.m. and 19 at 11 p.m. – after a North Oaks league.
Nine teams advanced to Sunday's semifinals with LaCaze and Hess on top at 1,917 for eight games and the cut Beasley and his partner Joiner at 1,735.
After the eight-game semifinal round, LaCaze and Hess remained on top at 3,642, followed by Cunningham and Valenta at 3,489, Roy Adams and Jeremy Boyer at 3,387, Himmler and Wolfe at 3,382, Joiner and Beasley at 3,376, Garry Helferstay and Shea Bittenbender at 3,339, Kevin Espy and Jeff Atkins at 3,244, Rebekah Diers and fiance Rick Van Scoyk at 3,226, and Tim Behrendt and Dean Richards at 3,198.
Behrendt got caught in traffic (a marathon was running) and he and Richards received 0's for Behrendt's frames on Sunday morning for the first game and a half.
Here are the results from the first round of match play:
Joiner/Beasley 214 255 469 ADVANCE
VanScoyk/Diers 179 178 357
Himmler/Wolfe 207 279 486 ADVANCE
Richards/Behrendt 252 210 462
Espy/Atkins 210 165 375
Helferstay/Bittenbender 191 236 427 ADVANCE
Here are the results from the second round of match play:
Helferstay/Bittenbender 179 161 340 ADVANCE
Himmler/Wolfe 172 DNF
Joiner/Beasley 200 206 406
Boyer/Adams 268 199 467 ADVANCE
Here are the results from the third round of match play:
Boyer/Adams 211 188 399
Valenta/Cunningham 223 203 426 ADVANCE TO FINALS
Hess/LaCaze 235 267 502 ADVANCE TO FINALS
Helferstay/Bittenbender 220 158 378
In the third place match, Helferstay and Bittenbender won with 385 (191-194) as Boyer and Adams managed just 340 (176-164) – the easy lane played much tougher on Sunday and scores generally were lower because of that.
In the title match, Hess and LaCaze won easily with 447 (235-212) to the 346 (154-192) of Valenta and Cunningham.
Hess bowled on the tough lane and LaCaze on the easy lane Sunday which they chose to do two out of the three qualifying attempts on Saturday.
This tournament allowed bowlers to cash more than once with different partners. Also, you could cash more than once with the same partner if you bowled opposite lanes during each of the three squads. Brett Cunningham and Nick Pahr cashed along with Hess and LaCaze a second time, but were unable to bowl on Sunday because they were already bowling with higher qualifying partners. Both teams earned the last two cash spots respectively which only left nine teams to compete on Sunday (all cashers).
First place paid $3,000, second $1,600 third $1,200, fourth $800, fifth and sixth $600 each, seventh-10th $400 each, and 11th $320.
North Oaks took just $1,000 in lineage for the weekend, with $400 covered by Insidebowling.com. In addition, Track donated a 716C bowling ball that raised another $120 for the prize fund.
More details on the tournament are available here.
The final match is archived on Ustream.
