What an incredible day last Saturday at Lakeside Lanes in Manchester, NH! Chris Sacchetti led all qualifiers with 704 that included a 99 opening string and a 177 finish; Shawn Baker had nearly 100 for his last 5 boxes of his first round match to defeat one of the favorites of the tournament in Dave Godwin and Mark Gregory; Brian Feist and Steve Lach had a great match against Mark Ricci and Keith Beaupre that saw two double strikes and a triple strike, and a spare in the last box by Ricci to win the match; topping it all off was a finals match won by Evan Mazzaferro and Brian Purdy against Jeff Slesinski and Jesse Jacques, in which Evan, Jeff and Jesse had never made an appearance in the finals before!

A total of 92 bowlers showed up and competed for the top 64 spots, and after the final qualifying round, there was a tie for the 64th spot between Dave Mallahan (formally Hodge) and Glen Ares.  Amazingly, Glen had made a comment during the fourth string of the last qualifying round (he bowled in the first shift), that statistically speaking, he was the cut. It turns out he was right, but Mallahan got the best of him in the one string roll-off (which almost never took place as we had to track Dave down in the parking lot and tell him he couldn’t leave yet) and advanced to the Random Draw Knockout.

With all the doubles paired up and the matches underway, Brian and Evan hit the ground running with a convincing victory over 4 time Pro Series Champion Scott Lapierre, who had a 207 in the final match of the Ultimate Ladder last year in Fitchburg, and Chris Sacchetti, who was the Pro Series Playoff Runner-Up and back to back top qualifier to start this season with 392 at Viking and 704 at Lakeside. Brian led the team with a 143 as Evan added a 130 to defeat them 273-236.

Brian again led the way in the second string with a 149 as Evan hit a respectable 116, and their 265 total was good enough to hold off the pairing of Mark Strangio and John Starner who had 140 and 118 respectively.

Their third match came at the right time as they only totaled 231, but were able to catch Jonathan Boudreau (113) and Chris Boisvert (102) on a down string and advance to the semi-finals. It was in the semis that Brian carried the load, bowling a 160 string and leading them to a 266-249 victory over Keith Beaupre and Mark Ricci. Keith bowled a 116 and Mark bowled a 133.

The final match wasn’t very high scoring, but it was high enough for Evan and Brian and that’s all that counts. Evan bowled a 114 and Brian had a 111 for a 225 total, which bested Jeff Slesinski and Jesse Jacques total of 214. Congratulations to the winners of the third Random Draw Doubles Tournament, Evan Mazzaferro and Brian Purdy.

Be sure to check www.candlepinproseries.com for complete results and point standings from Saturday’s tournament.