By Daniel Bonfield
The sell-out Handicap Doubles, the 7th stop of the BTBA Adult Tour was held on August 7th in Shipley.
24 teams contested the first round of 6 games, with the top 12 teams going through to a second round. Top qualifiers were Porkies Pro Shop 2 (Richard Thorpe & Dylan Maciuk) with Strikeline Proshop (Matt Clayton & Nathan Halliday) in 2nd.
BTBA tour ranking points were awarded on the individuals placing after this round. Samantha Hannan put a shaky 154 first game behind her to win the ladies section with 1318 (219 average). In the men’s section we saw some high scoring, with 279 games being rolled by Richard Balam and Jack Smith, a 290 game from Nathan Halliday, and a 299 from Alex Hamilton. But going one better was Gavin Greaves, who rolled a 300 in game 3, and then followed that with a 279, then a 278. Gavin’s 6 game block was 1598 giving him a 266 average to take 1st place. Gavin also secured the Striking Shirt £50 bonus for rolling the tournament’s first 300 and was the winner of the TRACK bowling ball for the highest score in qualifying.
The second round saw all the scores return to zero, so now the field was once again wide open. The second round saw all teams play a further 3 games with the top 6 going through to a round robin final. Moving to the top were the Mortal Allstars (Ricky Froldi and Paul Ryder) and in 2nd were Robbo’s Pro Shop 3 (Gavin Cox and Gary Christopher). Sneaking into 6th place thanks to a 279 game from Dan ‘basher’ Bonfield and partnered by Glen Richardson were We’ve Got Nothing Left.
In the round robin, there was plenty of chopping and changing of positions. Going into the final game the Powerplay Nuneaton team (Sam Rose and Alex Hamilton) were second with the Mortal Allstars first. Ricky and Paul from the Allstars put in a big game and a defeat for Powerplay to We’ve Got Nothing Left meant the Allstars took the title from Nuneaton Powerplay in 2nd and We’ve Got Nothing Left in 3rd.
Once again, thank you to the tour sponsors B&P Fabrications Leicester, Track Bowling, and Striking Shirts for boosting the prize fund. Thanks to Lee Metcalfe of Shipley Bowl for running a great event, and to all the bowlers who took part to make this a fun and very competitive tournament.
The next stop on the BTBA Adult Tour is the Dunstable Mixed Trios on 30th September-1st October.
Download full tournament results
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