Friends of a Famous Bowler!

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Player Won, Lost Bowling Tourney

By Glen Rosales
For The ABQ Journal

Nate Limback found himself in an interesting position Sunday afternoon in the finals of the Strike It Rich King Classic bowling tournament.

That's because he was a member of both teams that were playing for the championship at the Big Rock Casino in Española.

"That's not the kind of scenario you want to be in," he said.

On one hand, he was assured of being a part of the winning, five-man team.

But Limback, of Los Alamos, looked at it another way.

"It put a lot of pressure on me to make a good shot for both teams," he said. "I wanted to leave the outcome up to the rest of the members of each team."

The teams played a two-game series in the finale, with the Lock & Load squad of Santa Fe with Fred Moya, Henry Olivas, Ron George and Lance Emerson winning 234-207, 239-194 over Heads Up No. 2 of Española with Brian Hindberg, David Viera Jr., Rory Tooley and Dave Cates.

Lock & Load teammates split $3,000 for first place, while Heads Up No. 2 shared $2,000. So Limback came away with a cool $1,000 for his efforts.

"That's the most money I've ever won," he said. "I've played in this tournament two other times and never even made it the final 16. I was pretty excited."

Under the tournament's rules, one player could be on several teams, as long no more than three bowlers aren't part of two teams.

Although Limback was on both teams, he said the other bowlers on the teams were pretty understanding about the situation.

"I've known all the guys for a long time; they're all really good guys," he said. "That's another reason there was so much pressure on me to well for both teams."

For the most part, he was able to manage that, picking up two strikes for both teams in the first game and a strike and an open split in the other.

Nearly 400 teams participated in the three-day tournament, which was then whittled down to a final 16. From there, the teams played a double-elimination tournament to arrive at the final two teams.

In the round of 16, the games were rolled by each of the five bowlers, with each team member having two frames.

George, who recently won the Santa Fe city tournament, said that made this a challenging event.

"It gets rough," he said. "But everybody bowled a lot the day before. We had the rhythm going."

The monetary aspect added another challenge to the equation.

"It was a lot better because there was more money involved," he said. "It made it a lot more exciting. But it was kind of nerve wracking. I'd never bowled with that much money on the line."


It appears that Nate (friend, student, and workmate of Steve and I) has been busy bowling on at least three teams in a tournament this last weekend. He came in 1st, 2nd, and 4th. Guess the 1st and 2nd place was a bit of a strain for him. :)

Congrats Nate!

I am waiting to find out when he will shout Steve and me lunch one of these days. ;)