Hardin, Hicks claim bowling titles

Oaks Bowling Center, Fort Sill weekend before last, with the Jerry Hill Men’s Top average and the Jean Yamarik Women’s Top averages held on Saturday, June 27th and the Norma Hill Senior Top Average (Men’s and Women’s) held on Sunday, June 28th.

These events are by invitation only, based on the bowlers averages for the 2023-2024 bowling sea-son.

Starting with the Jerry Hill event (Scratch), the top five after 6 games of qualifying were Troy Hardin, 1452, Tory Morales, 1351, Richard Jacoby, 1345, Tim Lundquist, 1334 and James Biscaino, 1316.

Lundquist defeated Biscaino 191-186, Jacoby defeated Lundquist, 223-219 and Morales defeated Jacoby 257-205 and went on to beat Hardin 208-182 for the title.

The Jean Yamarik event is handicapped as the playing field is a much wider spread than would be fair to all competitors.

Dena Hicks was the top seed with 1299, followed by Amanda Price, 1270, Viaja Dewberry-Fulner, 1241, Amy Copeland, 1164 and Andrea Halstead, 1148.

Halstead beat Copeland, 237-143, Fulner beat Halstead, 181-178, Price beat Fulner, 160-152 and Hicks got the win over Price for the title, 214-204.

Some of these bowlers pulled double duty and were back at it the following day for the Norma Hill senior event.

Once again, the men’s scores are scratch and the women’s scores include handicap.

Qualifying scores were not available but the top 5 roll-off went as follows.

Bob Carter beat Ted Williams 223-196, Dave Yett beat Carter, 211-199, Yett beat Jeff Janssen, 213-205 but wasn’t able to hold off Richard Jacoby who won the title 192-180.

For the ladies, Dena Hicks won the first match against Leilani Wiggins, 234-148 and the second match against Margit Augustine, 206-179 but Barbara Ward held Hicks at bay taking the win 227-205.

Ward went on to face Kathy Zerbe who showed no mercy with a 242 – 157 win for the women’s title.

Leshikar Wins third Po-Boy

There were a record fifty-seven bowlers on hand for the last open-entry Po-Boy tournament of the summer, leaving only the grand finale invitational that is open only to those who bowled in at least four of the last eight events.

As reported last week, Zach Leshikar became the first bowler to win two tournaments this season. That soon changed as Leshikar came in with a vengeance and annihilated his completion to win his third Po-Boy title.

After qualifying top seed with games of 279 and 258 (537), Leshikar scored another 279 in the first game of the single elimination round of sixteen against sixteenth seed Jay Ramey (433).

Leshikar then advanced over Camden Sublet in the round of eight with a 269 and posted a 222 to beat out Andrew Jones to advance to the finals against Derrick Bennett where he added a 258 to take the championship title one more time.

Bennett, who had qualified third with 482, settled for second, followed by Jones and Treize Carnail in third and fourth place.

Making it to the field of eight guaranteed even money.

The remaining qualifiers to cash included Shawn Thomas, Dave Yett and Ryan Thomas.

Leshikar’s games of 279 and 258 were first place scores in the scratch side pot.

Second place went to Matt Ray in game one for a 250 and Joseph Spires rolled a 243 for second in game two during the first two game of qualifying.

Tune in next week for results from the Grand Finale event that was held last night.

No-Tap News

Armour Brown posted no-tap games of 245, 300 and 265 to win the men’s division title in the senior no-tap Colorama at Thunderbird Lanes last Friday afternoon with an 891 series.

JP Nauman finished in second with 873 followed by Steve Lindsay, 852 and Cleo Travis, 838.

Diane Frame took first for the ladies with 809, followed by Hazel Gary at 791.

The order for the Scratch singles event was Steve Lindsay, 837, Armour Brown, 810, and JP Nau-man, 792.

Mystery Doubles winners were James Halstead with Dennis Langham, 627, John Fortner with Kevin Pair, 555 and Steve Lindsay with Don Gettens, 582.

Strike pot winners included Kathy Zerbe, Mike Peckinpaugh, JP Nauman and Fred Bessette and win-ning a special challenge shot was Charles Norman who left the 3-10 to win the “Snake-Bite” purse.

Join senior bowlers age 50 and up every Friday afternoon at 1pm at Thunderbird Lanes for the senior 9-Pin No-Tap Colorama.