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Tournament of Champions: Things to Watch Tonight

Posted by Ken November 26, 2013 Fall 2013

The results of tonight's Tournament of Champions matchups will officially determine which eight bowlers will do battle next week for the whole thing. While certain bowlers have already secured their spots, there still exists several key contests tonight that will fill out the remainder of the seeding.Here's a closer look into each of the four divisions...DIVISION 1While it's still up in the air if he will be handed his first championship title or not, Ryan Doll has definitely secured one thing already – the top spot in Division 1. He'll enter the ToC next week as the #1 seed. The second seed is still up for grabs between Ken Wilson (20), Carl Goetz (20), Aubrey Moren (18), Seth Gunderson (16). Even better? All four of these contenders fighting to be the #2 seed are facing those not competing for a spot in Game #1. Seth (+25) faces Kody Karnes, Carl takes on guaranteed #1 seed Doll (+11), Aubrey (+11) battles John Boren, and Ken squares off against Bill Krejci (+15). If all four contenders are blanked in the first round, it'll end up as a tie between Carl and Ken and ultimately settled by their individual power rank scores from tonight. DIVISION 2Angela Bradford has already wrapped up the top spot in Division 2 guaranteeing her as the #3 seed in the actual Tournament next week. The battle for the overall #4 seed (second place in Division #2) is up for grabs amongst Jonathan Vigliaturo (18), Dennis Blake (16), Anita Osthoff (16), and Cliff Barendsen (16). In the first round, Dennis faces off against Cliff (+11) while JV (+3) faces off against guaranteed #3 seed Angela Bradford. Anita will be giving 13-pins to Eric Lynch to round out the rest of those fighting for the overall #4 seed spot.DIVISION 3No one has garnered more ToC points this season than Freda Schroeder, guaranteeing her the #5 seed in the final showdown. The battle for the overall #6 seed is still up for grabs, albeit barely. Currently, Bryan Mohr (21) is favored to walk away with it but there still exists a shot by Matt Bunyard (15) who needs to win each of the three rounds tonight and come away with a higher power rank score than Mohr to advance into the tournament next week. Matt (+3) will face off against Erik Stark to begin his quest to earn his tournament berth.DIVISION 4In our opinion, this will be the most fun division to watch. Why? No one has secured either of the two seeds and it all comes down to Chadwick Andrews (23), Steve Kohlmeyer (22), Michael Smith (19), Dave Winger (17), and Adam LaRocca (15) to figure out who will be the #7 and #8 seeds in next week's Tournament tonight. Even better? The first round of action tonight pits two sets of them against one another – Michael will take on Winger (+15), while Steve (+21) will try to take it to Adam. Chadwick, the current leader of the division, will be going up against Stephen Miller (+19). This, along with Division 3, could provide the best finishes of the night on the march into the Tournament.With the Tournament of Champions having become a popular staple of our league, we're wondering if you all are ready to take it to the next level. Participation into the ToC has been a mere $2 with the winner taking home $42 and second place earning $22. Would you all be willing to kick in a one-time entry fee of $5 for the tournament next season? The winner would walk away with $104 with second place getting $56. Not too shabby.After having retroactively running the ToC back as far as we could with the scores from seasons past, the Tournament of Champions has truly proven to be in anyone's hands – and rarely, if ever, in the hands of the best bowler in the league. Throughout the twenty seasons of winners we were able to calculate, TEN of those were from people in Division #2. Bowlers in Division #4 have produced SEVEN champions. Rounding it out were only TWO champs from Division #3 and ONE lone champ from the top division. Good luck to all of those still fighting for a shot into the Tournament.


One Response to “Tournament of Champions: Things to Watch Tonight”

  1. avatar AJ Hofmann says:

    I’d support the ToC contribution increase to $5 if the final week included the top 16 instead of only top 8. Perhaps as two separate brackets (1-2 seeds and 3-4 seeds). The 1-2 seed bracket payouts could be increased 50% while the new 3-4 seed payouts would be what the current prize amount is. Otherwise I think it would make the prize amount for only 2 people be too high.

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