Sunday, December 10, 2023 – CENTRAL LANES BOWLING CENTER, Tamuning, Guam
Manny Tagle ended a hard-charging second seed Mike Sanchez’s shot at a title with a strike in the best ball roll-off to become the 2023 PinPoint Grand Finals Champion. The two finalists who were the top two seeds each entered the roll-off tied with a victory apiece which led to the dramatic ending.
The two-day tournament began with thirteen bowlers qualifying for the remaining eight slots going into the final round of 16 vying for the title on Sunday afternoon at the Central Lanes Bowling Center. All qualifiers were also competing in the highest of their first two games of competition to determine their ranking position for the Last Man Standing Competition to be held in January.
The four-bracket stepladder format started with victories by Tony Sobrevilla over Joe Murphy, Jesse Eyoel over Bill Roberto, Virgil Toledo over Robert Baker, and Cris Leal over Bill Taimanglo in round 1.
The second round ended with Sobrevilla upsetting 6th seed Arlene Reyes in Category 1 and 8th seed Art Dulla over Eyoel in Category 2. Fifth seed Liz Langas prevailed over Toledo while Leal unseated 7th seed Jim Pinaula to advance into the quarterfinals.
The succeeding round was a “lower seed must beat higher seed twice” to advance format. Category 1 resulted in 3rd seed Rick Torres having to come back in the second game to defeat Sobrevilla. Top seed Tagle ended Dulla’s title run in Category 2. Third seed Frank San Agustin stopped Langs’ title quest in Category 3. Finally, the Category 4 victor was second seed Sanchez over Leal. The top four seeds were left to battle it out for the title in the same must beat the higher seed twice to advance.
The semifinals were equally dramatic as Sanchez nipped Torres in the second game to advance to the finals. Tagle also had to come back in the second game to end San Agustin’s title hopes with a narrow victory as well to take on Sanchez.
The finals had the sparse crowd in attendance mesmerized by Sanchez displaying his bowling prowess by defeating Tagle handily in the first game. Everyone watched as he continued his lead into the second round with
Tagle unable to muster consecutive strikes in the early frames to stay within reach. A 6-7-10 conversion and a strike coupled with two consecutive opens in the eighth and ninth frames gave the audience an epic ending
they wanted to see. Tagle proceeded an amazing comeback with two more strikes and a nine-count to tie Sanchez and force the dreaded one-ball roll-off for the championship. The result as reported earlier was Tagle’s roll-off strike to beat Sanchez’s eight count for the come-from-behind victory leaving the final four top seeds as the final four in the standings.
Tagle commented that it took everything from his past tournament experiences bowling for Team Guam with Pin Point Owner Joey Miranda III to put back into his game for that last charge to win despite suffering from a viral infection all week.
An epic end to a championship weekend for Guam senior bowling. The Last Man Standing competition was moved to January 2024 as an additional $1900 will be up for grabs to this tournament’s finalists based on
the best score of their first two games of competition and paid entry into this final.
Guam Bowling 