Lucas Punkari
Having jumped into the lead early Saturday morning, local bowler Jeff Watts could not be caught for the rest of the weekend.
Watts garnered a total pinfall of 5,394 in the two-day, 20-game Sunset Country ‘A’ Open, hosted this year by Plaza Lanes here, en route to first place in the men’s division and a berth at the provincial roll-offs April 4-7 in Thunder Bay.
Averaging 269 for the tournament, Watts finished 221 pins ahead of Kevin Blake of Kenora.
“It was a good weekend with some good competition here,” said Watts, who will bowl in both the singles and team divisions at the provincials.
“I didn’t bowl any really bad games, as well,” he noted. “And other than a couple of struggles here are there, everything went pretty well for me.”
The only time Watts was out of the lead was following the very first game Saturday morning, when his 270 left him in second place behind Blake.
But a 333 in the second game of the opening five-game block give Watts the lead he would never relinquish in the 26-man field.
“I would have to say that being consistent on knocking down the head pin was the key to my play,” said Watts, whose best game was a 360 bowled in the 18th game of the weekend.
“Over the course of 20 games, you have a game or two, or maybe a stretch of games, where you just can’t hit the middle usually, but I was always able to get back on it again and again,” he explained.
Blake nabbed second place with a 5,173 total, followed by Chris Gadd of Dryden in third (4,857).
They also will bowl in both the singles and team competition in Thunder Bay.
The rest of the Sunset Country men’s team will comprise of Dryden bowlers Darryl Rollins (4,785), Roger Peterson (4,768), and Jeff Hazlewood (4,718), who finished fourth through sixth.
Making the Sunset Country mixed team that will compete at the provincials were Atikokan’s Vernon Tattrie (4,672), Dryden’s Chris Rollins (4,630) and Mike Behan of Fort Frances (4,522).
Behan rose as high as seventh place, averaging 241 at that point, before cooling off. But he still managed to hang on to the ninth and final berth over the final half-dozen games.
His high game was a 355, which he rolled Saturday afternoon.
“I knew going in that it would be a marathon,” Behan said of the 20-game showdown.
“It was a real roller-coaster,” he added. “One good game and you gain 100 pins on the field.
“A bad one and you’re suddenly down 100.”
It will be Behan’s first trip to the Open, although he qualified for the provincials twice before in the pins over average division.
Two other Fort Frances bowlers competed in the men’s division, with Gerry Rousseau finishing 14th (4,309) and Rick Stamarski placing 19th (4,068).
Meanwhile, Terri Hamilton, who is from Red Lake but bowls out of Dryden, took the lead right from the start and never looked back as she captured the women’s division crown with a two-day total of 4,334.
“It was a very good weekend,” smiled Hamilton, who competed at the nationals in Winnipeg back in 2002.
“Being consistent, or at least trying to be, was my goal over the weekend and I was able to do that,” she remarked.
Joining Hamilton as singles and team competitors at the provincials will be fellow Dryden bowlers Tammy Woitowicz (4,232) and Shelley Petsnick (4,172).
Rounding out the Sunset Country women’s team are Eleanor Rumpel of Kenora (3,848), Pauline Kressall of Dryden (3,800), and Terry Delaronde of Dryden (3,779).
Jessica Mymryk of Kenora (3,746), Jackie Miner of Dryden (3,731), and Cheryl Stefanik of Kenora (3,667) earned spots on the mixed team after finishing seventh through ninth.
No local bowlers were entered in the 14-woman field.
The five other zones making up Northern Ontario are Cambrian North (Sudbury), Gateway (North Bay), Gold Belt (Timmins), Nickel District (Sudbury), and Thunder Bay.
