BATON ROUGE - A little before 3:30 p.m. Monday afternoon, the final shot after 150 days was rolled at the Raising Canes River Center exhibit hall in the USBC Open Championships.

David Shada of Idaho rolled a strike and a six-count 3-6-7-10 spare to score the last frame bowled in the event that started following the end of the Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade on March 1 and concluded Monday with the final two doubles and singles shifts. 

For just shy of five months, the USBC Open Championships have been bowling on 54 specially installed lanes here in Baton Rouge. For some 20 hours a day, bowlers from all over North America and a few overseas countries have been represented on the lanes. Some were trying for that prize symbol of winning – the eagle. Many more were trying to continue long years of bowling in the event with family and friends.

Also Monday, the Mayor’s office and Visit Baton Rouge announced the event would finish with a $125 million economic impact to Baton Rouge over the course of the tournament. That’s a 14 percent rise from the figures from the 2012 Open in Baton Rouge.

According to the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report, the Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center generated more than 9,000 room nights during the tournament, generating some $1.5 million in hotel revenue.

Back on the lanes, it has been said many times that a winning score can come at any time during the annual long runs of the USBC Open Championships. That the Phat Kids Crew rolled the winning score on April 13, isn’t that big a deal. It’s that they won with a score of 3,300 and no one really made a serious challenge to that score.

Interestingly enough it took 3,401 to win the 2012 event in the River Center by the Nicholas J Pro Shop of Wisconsin, but the winning score in 2005 was just two pins greater than this year, 3,302, by KR Strikeforce of Illinois.

So, you just never know. But when we see the actual pattern, we may begin to understand why the scoring on that pattern for team was called some of the toughest in recent times. In the last 21 years, 3,300 would have won just once in that time period. This year it wins for $40,000, a lot more than the team winners were paid in 2012 and 2005 Baton Rouge events.

Next week, I will offer some final thoughts about this story that played out over five months, hunt up some final statistics and begin to wonder if that was or wasn’t the final chapter of River Center bowling.

But there have been a couple of other bowling events that need a quick look.

Bragging Rights

Congrats to the Baton Rouge women who successfully defended their title in the Bragging Rights Six-Senate event in New Orleans recently under the TNBA umbrella.

The event involving TNBA affiliations in Jackson, Mississippi; Pensacola, Florida; Houston, Texas; and Houma, New Orleans and Baton Rouge. It features a giant team tournament and then the top bowlers with the best three-game scores from the Senates are put together as an association all-star group to bowl for the Bragging Rights titles.

The Baton Rouge women were made up of Bailee Chapman-Craighead, Felicia Baker, Lakeya Smith-Anthony, Ki’Ara Smith, Deidra Johnson and Keondra Eaton. Congrats to them. Chapman-Craighead posted 749 to qualify and Johnson a 720.

The other Baton Rouge all-star lineups were for the men: Juan Coston, Jr. (827), Gregory Snee (808), Philip Williams, Joshua Phillips and Roderick Lathers. The senior men’s qualifiers were: Barry Doyle (727), Wayne Mannie, Tyrone Wesley, Pete Palisi and Michael Beach. Doyle Mannie and Wesley, along with Kevin Kennerson, Sr., and Alzelia Stephens were the top Baton Rouge team in the regular team event with a 3,629 to take fifth.

Finally, the senior women’s lineup featured Sonja Franklin, Theresa Gibbs, Patricia Hebert, Stephens and Vera Young.

We’ve got a lot of Junior Gold and State Match games results we will get to as soon as we can, we promise.

Until next Monday, good luck and good bowling,

                                   Kent Lowe