Jimmy Hansen is Alaska 700 Club "Shenanigans" Champion

December 8, 2011

Jimmy Hansen 2011 700 Club Shenanigans Champion

The Alaska 700 Club Shenanigans tournament concluded this past Sunday, December 4^th, 2011 at Eagle River Bowl and crowned its champion, Jimmy Hansen, who led wire to wire.

The tournament, which combined blind draw baker trios, with blind draw scotch doubles, and some singles games left many wanting more and many others wondering what just happened.  With new teammates nearly every game, players sharing scores and then relying on their random teammates to come through in the clutch, the end result of your scores and ultimately your day was often left out of your control.

But all that confusion didn’t seem to bother Jimmy Hansen, who defeated James Krafft 217 to 176 in the finals to win the $400 first place prize.  Hansen, who admitted that he benefited from his teammates bowling well at all the right times, jump started his day with back-to-back 256 games in trios and doubles to give him a sizeable lead on the field.  Then followed that with a 247 game in singles for an opening 759 series.   With that lead, Hansen was able counteract a few not so good team games, with a 238 average in his singles games.  He also benefited from pairing up with an equally hot player, Larry Lanehart (2^nd place at the time), in games 7 and 8 to extend their lead on the field while simultaneously preventing Lanehart from gaining any ground on him.  Lanehart never gave in and made a run on Hansen in games 10 and 11 to shrink the lead to a slim five pins heading into the final qualifying singles game of the day.  But Hansen fired a 225 game to Lanehart’s 214 to secure the top seed for the finals.

The top eight players advanced to the stepladder finals with 3^rd place through 8^th place participating in a one-game blind draw trios roll-off.  Following the drawing, James Riske, Kristen Eggleton and Doug Morton teamed up to face Bill Sarvela, James Krafft and Joe Krison.  The team of Sarvela, Krafft and Krison survived with a 211 to 183 victory.  Riske, Eggleton, and Morton earned $155 per person for their 6^th place finish.

Following the trios round, the three victors, Sarvela, Krafft, and Krison joined #2 seed Lanehart for a blind draw scotch doubles match.  After the draw, Krafft and Lanehart were paired up against Sarvela and Krison.  Krafft and Lanehart fired a big 233 to fend off Sarvela & Krison’s 202 game to advance to the head to head portion of the finals.  Sarvela and Krison snagged $200 a piece for their 4^th place finish.

With all the gimmicks out of the way, Krafft and Lanehart would battle in a traditional singles match for the right to face Hansen in the finals.  Krafft took an early lead while Lanehart struggled to get the corner pins out, resulting in a 236 to 184 victory for Krafft.  Lanehart took home $250 for his 3^rd place finish.

Which left Krafft and Hansen rolling for the title.  Hansen, who watched Krafft open the first three frames with strikes and take a double digit lead, capitalized on a split by Krafft in the 4^th frame to take the lead back by 4 pins and never looked back.  Hansen cruised to the 217-176 win.  Krafft grabbed $320 for his runner-up finish.  For the complete final standings, click here.

Next up on the Alaska 700 list of events is the 700 Club Classic tournament held in Fairbanks Alaska, December 10^th and 11^th.  Entry forms available online or by emailing alaska700club@gmail.com.