Sunday, September 7, 2025 – CENTRAL LANES BOWLING CENTER, Tamuning, Guam
Manny Palileo walked into the Central Lanes Bowling Center expecting to just participate in the Last Man Standing competition. Instead, he was asked to take up a missing slot because of a Top 16 qualifier no-show. So, resetting his mindset, he started a rough
journey, climbed up the 16-person tournament field, and capped it off by toppling second seed Manny Tagle in the finals 257-238 with handicap and bonus points to become the Pin Point Monthly Senior Challenge Champion for September.
Sheila Bangs started the tournament fun by outlasting everyone to win the Last Man Standing progressive pot competition. She took no chances and took the guaranteed 5% of the $2,638 prize money instead of betting it all to get more and walked away $131 richer than when she came into the alley.
The tournament pattern was night and day for both elimination brackets as 12th seed Alex Santiago and 5th seed Henry Abasta slammed 241 and 257 scores (with handicap) respectively to oust 16th seed Jim Pinaula, 14th seed Yvonne Acda, 9th seed Rene Cariaso, and 7th Zaldy Ponce in the A bracket.
The B bracket was just the opposite, as 15th seed Palileo’s 192 score and 13th seed David Cruz’s 233 game (with handicap) were able to remove 11th seed Virgil Toledo, 10th seed Jess Muya, 8th seed Nixon Caasi, and 6th seed Leody Ersando, ending their title run efforts.
Then the next round was again a strike fest as 3rd seed Cris Leal bowling with a hand injury and the pain that went with it, gutted out a 253 game to stop Abasta and Santiago from advancing. Palileo caught fire with a 251 game to eke out Cruz and upset 4th seed Frank San Agustin to move to the semi-finals.
The real drama began for both brackets while the sparse crowd enjoyed a knockdown all out battle for the right to go to the title match. The A bracket semi-final saw Leal losing to Tagle 232-224 in game one but came back to even the score 239-221. Tagle took the best ball tie breaker to advance. Palileo, on the other hand, upset top seed Gomez Martinez in two games 233-193 and 290-218 to go for his first championship match this year.
The final match pitted the wily veteran and monthly champion Tagle and Palileo as both players took jabs through the first eight frames with no one giving any breathing room until the last two frames when Palileo mustered whatever he had from rolling all the games it took to get there to put a three bagger over the final frames to finally win the title. It was a very satisfying victory for Palileo who just wanted to play the game for fun just over a year ago. Today he is in several leagues and loving the sport better than before. He has stated that his goal now is to participate in the 2026 Asia Senior Bowling Championship representing Guam in Nagasaki, Japan. He is not alone in this quest as the Guam Senior Bowlers Association will be conducting activities to help Palileo and other interested seniors to meet that goal.
The October qualifiers are currently ongoing throughout the various leagues till around the last week of September. Interested senior bowlers aged 50 and over can check with the bowling counter or the Pin Point Pro Shop at Central Lanes for more information on the qualifying rules and tournament details. Ask for Joey Miranda, Jim Pinaula, or Manny Tagle to get tournament rules and event information.
Guam Bowling 