Nottingham Freshers Trios – October 2018
The Freshers trios is one of the staple events in the BUTBA tour, this year running a simplified format of straight handicapped pinfall over the course of 4 games. It was great to see so many new faces bringing such competition off the mark. It was clear that the tournament would be hotly contested and there was little difference in scores between 4 teams throughout fighting for the top spot. The fight for the top was hotly contested by Birmingham A and Nottingham A, B and C.
Nottingham came out with some big punches in the first game, A 161 scratch from Hussain AR From Notts A, but the game to beat came from Robert Allen from Notts B; who put in 168 scratch (305 HDC) which ultimately was not beaten and he walked away with the High Handicap Male game.
The only 200+ scratch game came in game 2 for Hussain AR, posting a score of 203 giving him the High Scratch game of the tournament. Nottingham B also came out of the blocks quickly in game 2 putting in the only 700+ handicap score increasing their lead from the first round with thanks to a 161 scratch (277 handicap) from Timothy Masiko.
Birmingham put in a big effort in the 3rd game, all three members of the team posting above average games which gave them a score of 795 (handicap) making them jump into the top spot by only 1 pin.
The final game saw Nottingham C and Birmingham locked together on the same pair of lanes fighting for the top spot. Nottingham C had a 56 handicap pin advantage over Birmingham with only one pin in it after the 3rd game Birmingham needed 56 pins extra to beat Nottingham C, the pressure was on for the Birmingham A team. Robert Allen put in a solid 263 (handicap) for Nottingham C but it wasn’t enough as Birmingham put in another above average game to win by 14 pins overall.
Other achievements to note; the Most Improved bowler was awarded to James Gibson (Birmingham) with 22.3 pins over the course of the tournament. Ruth Keane (Nottingham C) won Female High Handicap with a score of 250 in the final game.
A big congratulations to Birmingham, and the other winners of this year’s tournament.
Finally, a big thanks to those who participated in the tournament this year, and also to MFA Nottingham for having us at such short notice.