Sask Teams earn medals at C5PBA Open Nationals

Congratulations to all three teams (Men’s, Ladies, & Mixed) representing Saskatchewan! They all bowled very well and are bringing back some hardware from this past weekends C5PBA Open Nationals in Calgary.

The Men’s team was involved in a highly competitive battle during the round robin qualifying portion of the event. The top 4 qualifiers for the stepladder were only separated by 9pts, with our Men’s qualifying 3rd. In the stepladder playoffs, Saskatchewan won their first match vs Quebec, but came up short against eventual gold medal winners Newfoundland, thus earning bronze. Brad Moens qualified for the Men’s All-Star team.

In the Ladies event, Saskatchewan played a solid qualifying round, easily qualifying 3rd for the stepladder playoffs. In their first match, the ladies defeated Quebec 1152-1107. Their second match would prove to be a bit more difficult as they lost a close one to Alberta 1167-1131. Alberta would go on to win gold, defeating 1st place Ontario twice. Amber Neuberger earned a ladies All-Star team spot.

The Saskatchewan Mixed team rolled through qualifying and earned the 1st place seed for the stepladder playoffs, losing only 3 of their 18 matches. With qualifying 1st comes the advantage of having to be beaten twice in order to win gold. Unfortunately for our Mixed team, they lost their first match to and a real close second match 1108-1092 to Manitoba and would take home silver. Todd Vance would win the Rookie of the Year award and a spot on the Men’s All-Star team.

In the Singles event Lonny Akers was in the hunt for all 21 games to make the stepladder playoffs, but came up just short, missing the playoffs by only 24 pins and finishing 7th. Tracey Kenney finished 9th.

An interesting side-note: ALL 1st place seeds (teams & singles events) lost twice in the final of the stepladder.

Photos of our medalists:

For complete/detailed results visit www.c5pba.ca…