Derek Eoff defeated Jon Schalow 255-224 to win the MAST 2023-24 Year-End Invitational event at Bowl-A-Vard Lanes Sunday.

This marked the eighteenth career MAST title and third this season for Eoff. This was also his third career Year-End title and second straight, having won our 2022-23 Year-End event at Ten Pin Alley. Schalow was seeking his second Year-End Title.

Eoff earned $1,000 for the win, with Schalow taking home $825 for second. Also making the stepladder finals Sunday were Brent Ritchie (3rd – $650) and Chad Svendsen (4th – $500).

Eoff averaged just over 241 in his thirteen games Sunday including the day’s only 300 game mid-way through match play, and stepped up the pace late averaging over 256 through his final four matches and the stepladder final.

Schalow was one of several big movers during match play Sunday. Following a slow start in the front half of the block with a 2-4 record and a 211.67 average to fall from third to ninth, Schalow rebounded by winning his last six matches and averaging 233.33 to climb back to third and make the stepladder.

Ritchie held position in the middle of the pack for most of the day, but posted a 279 game in his tenth match to climb from fifth to second, and held onto that spot through the position round.

Svendsen held onto the second position for most of the day, briefly relinquishing the spot to Peter Kortes. A 162 game in his tenth match dropped him out of the stepladder at fifth, but he rebounded by averaging 220 in spliting his last two matches to lock up the fourth seed in stepladder.

Kortes averaged over 241 in winning his first seven matches to climb from ninth to second, but struggled with blisters in his last few matches to fall back to fifth, missing out on the stepladder finals by just thirty pins.

Tim Morris averaged over 226 in winning four of his first five matches to climb from twelfth to sixth, eventually finishing in eighth place.

We do want to acknowledge an error near the end of match play. After the eleven round-robin matches, there was a tie for eighth place at 4,291. We noted the tie and highlighted the high-game tiebreakers on the recap sheets, but this was not accurately reflected on our standings sheet, leading to incorrect lane assignments for eighth and ninth place for the position round matches. The error was not noticed until after the position round matches were completed. After discussion with the affected bowlers including seventh place, the bowlers agreed to pool and evenly split the seventh-, eighth- and ninth-place payouts. Our sincere apologies to those affected by the mistake; we will work to improve our processes for future events.

The Results page is available here.

This concludes our 2023-24 season. Thank you to all of the bowlers who participated in our events. We also want to extend a huge Thank You to Matt Maly with M & J Truck and Auto Repair and Bill Pounders with Ten Pin Alley Pro Shop for their generous sponsorships this season, and to all of our host centers for their ongoing support. Our 2024-25 schedule should be posted in August.