Sunday, January 5, 2025 – CENTRAL LANES BOWLING CENTER, Tamuning, Guam
Story by Rick Torres
It was Tagle vs Ponce round 3 to open the 2025 Pin Point Senior Monthly Challenge and again as in December, 2nd seed Manny Tagle held off 11th seed Zaldy Ponce to take the first championship of the new year 260- 254 and another exciting nailbiter like the 2024 Grand Senior Finals. Only this time Tagle did not end up the bridesmaid.
The tournament opened up as usual with the Last Man Standing competition but with a couple of changes in the format for winning this progressive pot game. The format to determine the last man standing remains the same but, when you are the last man standing, you get a choice of either taking the 5% guarantee of the collected pot or draw a chip from a bag to determine whether you roll for 7, 8, 9 pins, or strike to get to the next 5% level. Ponce won the honors this month and drew the strike chip after having to agree to go to the next level. He failed in his strike attempt so therefore the money collected this month rolls over into February.
The two bracket elimination formats remained and in round 1, Bracket A winners 16th seed Yvonne Acda and 2024 Grand Champion and 12th seed Jim Pinaula advanced over 5th seed Bill Taimanglo, 7th seed Tony Sobrevilla, 9th seed Nick Gutierrez, and 14th seed Rick Torres. Bracket B winners were Ponce and 8th seed Alex Santiago ousting 6th seed Jude Tenorio, 10th seed Charlie Cabarles, 13th seed Joe Murphy, and 15th seed Art Dulla.
Round 2 Bracket A eliminations had Pinaula and Acda fall to 3rd seed Mike Duenas. In Bracket B Ponce continued his charge to the finals by beating out Santiago and 4th seed Gina San Nicolas to go to the semifinals.
The semi-final match is a race to two wins format. Tagle took the Bracket A spot in the finals by taking two straight from Duenas 248-196 and 203-187 with handicap. In the Bracket B side, Ponce countered with two wins to upset top seed Sheila Bangs 219-176 and 285-183 to get another title shot against Tagle.
Ponce started the final match with opens in the first and third frames coupled with spares in the second and fourth. Tagle fared much better with two strikes to open his match and three spares to follow going into the sixth frame. Ponce then caught fire and slammed four strikes in a row to close the gap. Tagle answered with three strikes from the sixth through eighth frames to force Ponce to respond. Like two heavyweights in a title bout, Ponce sent his ball into the pocket, sadly left one pin standing but picked it up. He then proceeded with three powerful strikes to end the game and force Tagle to hit at least nine pins for the title which he did.
Although Ponce won the match with a scratch score of 216 to Tagle’s 211, it was the handicap and bonus points earned by bowling over their rated averages that determined the 260-254 difference and the January crown to Tagle.
The 2024 Last Man standing finals will be held on Sunday January 12 where more than several thousand dollars is up for grabs.
Qualifiers for the February tournament is still ongoing. For details see Joey Miranda, Jim Pinaula, or Manny Tagle at the Pin Point Pro Shop in Central Lanes Bowling Center.
Guam Bowling 