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With urethane and polyester, Zach Andresen leads qualifying as plus 92 makes cut, plus 84 cashes at 2024 GIBA 11thFrame.com Open
Junior Team USA member Zach Andresen led Saturday’s qualifying with 1,503 for six games as 1,292 made the cut and 1,284 cashed at the 2024 GIBA 11thFrame.com Open at Cherry Lanes inside the Diamond Jo Casino building in Dubuque, Iowa.
The 156 players bowled six games with the top 48 advancing to Sunday’s competition and four additional players cashing.
Lefty Brandon Kreyer was second with 1,464, followed by Bryan Thompson at 1,435, Ryan Powers 1,410, and Derek Kindig and Lucas Hersrud, who win Friday’s sweeper, 1,408 each.
Darin Bloomquist was 48th at 1,292, four pins ahead of Mike Kicmal.
Jacob Kraft, Tony DeVita, and Brady Gustafson tied for 50th, 51st and 52nd with 1,284, two pins ahead of Cameron Foster, with five more players within eight pins of the last cash spot.
Scores are being posted here, and Mike Flanagan’s InsideBowling.com is webcasting the tournament here.
Sunday’s innovative format that comes from the fertile mind of Flanagan features 12 games of bowling starting at 9 a.m. with bonus pins based on score from highest to lowest. For example, if 48 advance to Sunday in each game the highest scorer will get 48 bonus pins, the second-highest scorer 47 pins, so on down to 1 bonus pin for the lowest score each game. Whatever number of finalists there are, that number of bonus pins will go to the high scorer down to 1 pin for the lowest score each game.
Yes, it’s not head-to-head; instead, it’s all-against-one. The idea is to reward the consistently solid bowler and not the one who may bowl the right people at the right time. And everyone who makes the cut gets to bowl all of Sunday's games.
This updating Google doc has the full Flanagan format results.
The top five after 18 games with bonus pins make the stepladder finals, which will be contested on fresh oil and air around 3:45 p.m. to a little later.
The entry fee is $160, and first through fifth is $2,800, $2,300, $1,800, $1,400 and $1,100. Seniors and women each are guaranteed a 1-in-3 cashing ratio paying at least $160 per check. For example, if 15 seniors enter and two cash in the regular prize list there would be three separate senior checks so five cash.
The lane play for right-handers varied from urethane and even polyester up the outside to reactive resin hooking the lane, while left-handers mostly stuck to urethane up the outside.
The lane pattern was the same one used in 2022 and 2023, but scores were much higher this year, which I don’t have a certain explanation for. In 2023, the cut was plus 29 and the cash was plus 15. In 2022, the cut was plus 52 and the cash was plus 42.
Nick Hoagland, who designs patterns for USBC, offered Cherry Lanes director Bob Hochrein his expertise in crafting a shorter pattern than the pattern we used for several years prior to 2022 that was a modification of the 2015 U.S. Open pattern designed by Hoagland for USBC.
I earned Hoagland’s services by making a donation to the Make-A-Wish charity tied to the huge Hoosier Classic college tourney H2M Management runs in Indianapolis. (That was an offer he made to anyone.)
The pattern is 37 feet with 24.63 mL of Connect oil and pattern ratios by volume of 1.11-1 on the left and 1.66-1 on the right.
Here is what Hoagland said about the pattern before last year's tournament: "I was glad to help the tournament out as Jeff was kind enough to make a donation to Make-A-Wish to help the Columbia 300 Hoosier Classic Bowling Tournament to grant wishes! Jeff, Bob and Joe wanted something different, and shorter, and it is a challenge! The pattern should play out for everyone and I do expect urethane to be in play. I think that the pattern will hold up for 12 games due to the fact that everyone’s ball will be outside of the first arrow at the breakpoint; thus saving the track and middle parts of the lane for later in the block.”
The burly Thompson, who led A squad, used his strength to stay right, hard and fairly direct with reactive resin, as he explained in this interview after his round.
Andresen, who will be a sophomore at Mount Mercy this school year, used a polyester Columbia BLUE DOT the last two games as he detailed in this interview after he led B squad.
Kreyer, who led C squad, was the highest of the at least five lefties who made the cut. (I don’t know every name so it may have been more.) In this interview after he finished, Kreyer explained how his weekend started on the wrong foot with 253 for his first two games of the sweeper, and soared from there.
The 11thFrame.com Open often has been feast or famine for lefties, but this pattern has been the most equitable we have used.
The challenge is finding something that holds up on the right side for the 12 games on Sunday without having players ending up lofting the left guttercap as happened in 2014. That generally means a pattern that plays from the outside, but it’s very hard to use such a pattern without having lefties dominate. Compensating for that domination can easily shut them out.
We also aim for a challenging pattern with a relatively low scoring pace, which adds to the challenge of crafting the pattern.
Scores were higher than we’d like to see this year, but I will take equity over scoring pace any day.
I’ll say again something I’ve written and said numerous times: the margin between lefty dominance and shutout, and excessive softness and brutality is smaller now than it ever has been in bowling history. Equity between sides and styles and a middle ground in scoring has never been harder for a lane pattern designer to find.
The one thing I promise is transparency in what we put out and the reasoning that goes into it — I would not allow my name and brand to be part of any tournament that didn’t offer transparency.
Alexis Runk was the top woman, advancing in 36th with 1,317. Husband and fellow professional Brandon Runk was 29th with 1,328.
Hersrud won the sweeper on Friday night with 1,194 for five games.
GIBA administrator Joe Engelkes said there will be more than $4,000 in added money from GIBA sponsor Ebonite and returning sponsors the Dubuque Regional Sports Commission, Diamond Jo Casino, Cherry Lanes, IAMBowling, The Steen Team-Stride Bank-Structure Real Estate, and 11thFrame.com.
My preview of the weekend is here.
Matt McNiel won the 11thFrame.com Open in 2012, Matt Gasn in 2014, McNiel again in 2015, Jay Watts in 2016, Adam Morse in 2017, Andy Mills in 2018, Nate Stubler in 2019, Jerry Marrs in 2020, Stubler again in 2021, Nick Pate in 2022, and Dakota Solonka last year. (No tournament was held in 2013.)
