Benard wins Twin Oaks PBA Regional

The 14th annual PBA Southwest Regional tournament was held at Twin Oaks Bowling Center over the weekend of the 6th – 8th. Hopefully you got a chance to go out and watch as the roster showed a long list of up and coming bowlers from this area. Kelly Wright, Twin Oaks Manager, and PBA regional director Tony Lanning provided the following press report for publication.

“Deo Benard continues to show why he is leading the race for Southwest Region Player of the Year by earning his 6th career title this weekend at Twin Oaks Bowling Center at Ft. Sill.

With one game to go in the top 10 Eliminator round on Sunday, Dylan Macon held a slight 7 pin lead over Benard with Kris Koeltzow (3rd) and AJ Chapman (4th) close behind. In fact, only 40 pins sepa-rated 4th – 8th so determining the final four players for the stepladder was a race to the finish.

Chapman was able to put together 246 which propelled him to the top seed at +372 followed by Benard (+347), Macon (+344) and Koeltzow (+342).

The stepladder finals offered more tight races with Macon and Koeltzow squaring off in match one.

Koeltzow took a quick lead with a 4-bagger early in the game but Macon finished with 5 consecutive strikes for 223.

Koeltzow’s effort in the 10th ended with 8-spare-strike and his own 223 to force a sudden death roll-off.

Macon led the way with a strike and Koeltzow was only able to muster a 9 count, ending his bid for a third title in 2023.

In the second match, Macon continued to bowl a solid game but never found more than a double. His five nine spares gave him a clean game at 202 but Benard quickly found a 4-bagger and despite an early open frame was able to emerge victorious with 213.

As 4 time champion AJ Chapman started the final match you could see that the traffic on the right side of the lane was beginning to take its toll. He was never able to truly conquer the left lane leaving splits in three of his five attempts on lane 25. On the other hand, although Benard failed to convert two 5 count wash-outs during the game, he once again put together a string of strikes in frames 3 thru 7. After adding a double in the 10th frame he was able to claim his 3rd title in the last 3 months with a 219-155 victory.”

League Highlights

On the local front, the TNT league at Thunderbird Lanes turned in the high series of 733, rolled by Nathan Baggett.

Nate put games of 255, 246 and 232 together to make up the series.

Bill Kaplan was second best with 724 from the Suburban where he had 244, 267 and 213 and tying for third best was Richard Jacoby and Tory Morales with 721.

Jacoby’s 721 came from the senior Entertainers where games of 217, 276 and 228 were put on the board.

Morales was bowling in the Suburban league when he had games of 258, 256 and 207 for his 721 set.

Teri Jester led the ladies with 662 from a makeup set for the Entertainers. Jester had games of 219, 196 and 247, the high game for the gals this week as well.

Honorable mention goes to Donna Janssen for an All Spare 186 game from the His and Hers’.

Youth

Jake Croft held the lead for another week posting a 592 in the TBird Legends on games of 213, 208 and 171.

Maddox Swietek posted the youth high game of the week of 238 in the same league.

In the U12 group, Joseph Resler headed the clan, posting a 112 and a 146 before the bottom fell out leaving him with a 341 for the week’s high series.

No-Tap News

Malden Smith came within one frame of a perfect series to roll this week’s winning score of 950.

Smith posted scratch games of 300, 278 and 300.

David Yett was also zoned in, walking away with second and a 911 series on games of 278, 288 and 300.

And third place went to Cle Cox for 868 on games of 228, 203 and 254.

Lil Johnson took first for the ladies with 874 that went 278, 259 and 256 and Diane Frame finished in second with 838, thanks to a 278 closer.

Scratch winners were Malden Smith, 878, David Yett, 866 and Lil Johnson, 793.

Strike pot ticket winners included Randy Travis, Malden Smith, James Halstead Jr., David Yett, Ken Knoff and Maria Garcia.

And Mystery Doubles winners were Malden Smith with Cle Cox, 613, Maria Garcia with Lil Johnson, 605 and John Fortner with David Yett won game three with 650 and for a tournament first, Yett and Fortner both had no-tap 300 games to make up their total.

There were no special challenge winners this week.

This event is held every Friday afternoon at Thunderbird Lanes; starting at 1 p.m. Bowlers must be at least 50 years old with a verifiable average to participate.