After leaving a ridiculous blower 10 in the ninth frame of the title match, powerful 2-handed lefty Cam Crowe said he “absolutely” believed Ryan Powers had him beat.

Crowe could get to 237 with three strikes in the 10^th, while Powers was working on a potential 279 going into his ninth frame and just needed two marks, a strike and an open, or an open and a double.

But Powers, a right-hander, came high, left a 3-6 and chopped the 3 off the 6 shooting it from the right. Now needing a double to shut out Crowe, Powers flushed his first shot in the 10^th but then came high and left a 4-pin, which he made for 235, leaving Crowe needing a double and a 9-count.

“I just told myself, ‘This is what you’re built for, so go do it,’ ” Crowe said in my interviews with Powers and Crowe starting about 1 hours 41 minutes into the InsideBowling webcast of the stepladder.

And he did, rolling two flush strikes and a huge blower for 237 to win the 12th edition of the tournament at Cherry Lanes inside the Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque, Iowa.

“You’re not going to win tournaments if you can’t make a spare,” a disgusted Powers said.

Powers said he had been shooting the 3-6 from the right during the tournament. That is not that uncommon on short patterns like the 37-foot pattern used in the tournament.

“Fortunately for me he got an unfortunate break on the chop,” Crowe said.

Crowe started the title match with a brutal pocket 7-10 split, but Powers jumped high and left a 3-6-9 he was unable to make.

Crowe said he picked the wrong one of his two PURPLE HAMMERS and switched after the first frame, while Powers said he had hit his Hammer PINK WIDOW URETHANE with fresh surface before the title match and that caused the high hit.

Crowe responded with a double, but then came light on a shot he called a “miscue,” breaking up a 3-7 to leave just a 7-pin he converted.

Crowe followed with a 4-bagger, the third of which was an absurd cartwheel messenger.

Powers was unfazed, though, as he rolled a 7-bagger until he was fazed in the ninth with the 3-6 and open.

First was $2,800 plus $790 in the Bet You Win pot, and second was $2,300. He full prize list is attached to this story as a PDF.

Crowe has been on a roll in recent months, winning the $10,000 Memorial Day Classic and finishing second in the $10,000 Springfield Doubles Shootout last weekend.

He termed it “starting to get locked in” and talked after his win about competing in this week’s PBA Tour Trials in the Chicago area.

The 156-entry field bowled six games on Saturday with the top 48 advancing to Sunday’s competition and four additional players cashing. Junior Team USA member Zach Andresen led Saturday’s qualifying with 1,503 as 1,292 made the cut and 1,284 cashed.

Sunday’s innovative format that comes from the fertile mind of Mike Flanagan featured 12 games 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.

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.

Crowe was the leader after 18 games at 4,741, including 1,377 in qualifying, 2,908 in the semifinals, and 456 bonus. The latter two were high for the day.

Victor Cortez Jr. was second at 4,651, Powers third with 4,624, Darin Bloomquist fourth at 4,579, and Matt Hibbard fifth with 4,540, 37 pins ahead of Adam Morse and 68 ahead of Logan Williams, who was 48^th after a 151 first game Sunday.

Hibbard jumped into the top five with 268, the highest final game, but with the lanes re-oiled for the stepladder, he struggled to a 166 that featured just two strikes and no doubles, falling to Bloomquist’s 220 with a 4-4 finish.

Hibbard said he struggled to sub-200 games all three times he bowled on fresh oil during the weekend in this interview starting about 24 minutes, 30 seconds into the InsideBowling webcast of the stepladder.

Powers then eliminated Bloomquist 218-186 as he bowled a clean game with two doubles, while Bloomquist couldn’t strike on the right lane, leaving a solid 10-pin, a 2-4-8 he couldn’t convert, a 2-pin, a 2-8 and a 4-pin.

In this interview starting about 49 minutes, 30 seconds into the InsideBowling webcast of the stepladder, Bloomquist, who was the last person to make the cut in 48^th, said the right lane got really tight with Powers throwing urethane.

In the semifinal match, Powers started with a 4-bagger, but Cortez followed a strike and a 2-pin for a spare, with a 5-bagger.

But Cortez closed with a 2-8 he spared, a 4-6 split, and a 4-pin, spare and strike for 225.

Needing a mark in the 10^th, Powers rolled three strikes for 246.

In this interview starting about 1 hour, 13 minutes into the InsideBowling webcast of the stepladder, Cortez explained what happened in his closing frames.

The lane pattern was the same one used in the 11thFrame.com Open in 2022 and 2023. 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.

The possible explanations include a strong field, players have a better idea of how to play the pattern after two years of using it, and Cherry Lanes having a new lane machine that had just been tuned up.

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 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.

Crowe was the high lefty last year in seventh and 2-time champion Nate Stubler was ninth.

This year, five left-handers made the cut and Runk had the second-highest finish in 13^th.

Crowe said he thought his power was the differentiator over the other left-handers.

Alexis Runk was the top woman, finishing in 36^th after advancing in 36^th.

All results are here, and all of the webcast archives are here.

Lucas Hersrud won the sweeper on Friday night with 1,194 for five games.

Here is GIBA administrator Joe Engelkes' report:
"Congratulations to Cameron Crowe on winning this year's 11thFrame.com Open!!  Just moments after he told me "I will never win one of your tournaments", Crowe stepped up and threw three strikes in his final frame to win the title match over Ryan Powers 237 to 235.  It was a crazy finish for sure with Powers stepping up in the ninth frame on a 7 bagger and needing only to fill his final two frames with good count marks to lock up his first GIBA title.  Unfortunately for Powers, he left the 3-6 combination in the ninth and chopped the 3 pin off.  Still, Powers needed the first two strikes in the tenth and 3 pins on his count ball to guarantee the win.  He threw a solid strike on the first shot, but his second shot went high and left a 4 pin which he converted.  That set the stage for Crowe to pull out the win with two strikes and at least 9 pins on his fill ball.  Crowe was up to the challenge throwing two solid strikes and a ridiculous blower strike on the fill to win his first GIBA title.
The weekend was very good with a full field of 156 entries that included one re-entry when we had a no show on the last squad.  The scoring pace was higher than expected, but the equity between the left and right sides as well as various styles was very good.  That is more important to us than the scoring pace.  We once again used the Flanagan format for round two on Sunday and the movement up and down the standings was as crazy as ever.  Two bowlers who made the stepladder finals were Darin Bloomquist in 4th and Matt Hibbard in 5th.  Bloomquist started the day in 48th place which was the final spot to make the cut, and Hibbard started in 43rd place.  In addition, Dakota Vostry made the climb all the way from 47th to 9th place.  The format features bonus pins awarded in each of the 12 games with the highest game receiving 48 bonus pins, second highest 47, and so on down to the lowest game receiving 1 bonus pin.  Other top placers included Victor Cortez Jr. in 3rd, Bloomquist 4th, Hibbard 5th, Adam Morse 6th, Logan Williams 7th and Brady Stearns 8th.  Williams started Sunday morning with a 151 game that dropped him all the way to 48th place before making a major charge back up the standings to claim his 7th place finish.
Our next tournament will be the Ebonite Fall Classic to be held at Maple Lanes in Waterloo the weekend of September 13-15.  That tournament is currently full with 44 bowlers currently on the waiting list.  If you reserved a spot for that tournament and are not able to bowl, please let me know as soon as possible so I can fill the spot from my waiting list.
It is amazing to me how fast our tournaments are filling.  If you have plans to bowl other upcoming events at Bowlerama, Cedar Rapids Bowling Center, or the Iowa Open, contact me right away to reserve your spot.  The Iowa Open is filling very fast and the other two are well over half filled.
One major reason our tournaments are filling so fast is the great support we get from our sponsors.  The 11thFrame.com Open was sponsored by Diamond Jo Casino, Cherry Lanes, Dubuque Regional Sports Commission, 11thFrame.com, Ebonite, Kwik Trip/Kwik Star, I AM Bowling, Brandon Steen/Stride Bank/Structure Realtors, and the GIBA.  We took in $24,960 in entry fees and paid out a total prize fund of $30,180.  This included two extra senior paid spots and two extra female paid spots.  Your support of our sponsors is critical to their continued sponsorship of our tournaments!!"  

Thanks to everyone for your continuing support of our GIBA tournaments!!

GIBA administrator Joe Engelkes said there was 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.)