Matt Gasn won the GIBA 11thFrame.com Open on Sunday (Photo by Jackie Carbonetto)

JEFF RICHGELS | 11thframe.com

DUBUQUE, Iowa — Matt Gasn grabbed the lead early in Sunday’s 12 games of semifinals at the 2014 GIBA 11thFrame.com Open, extended it to more than 200 pins and then held on until the last game, when he fell to third as Jonathan Schalow and Brad Miller surged by him.

By that time, those three players and several others in the 43-player field were lofting the left gutter cap, some to an extreme degree and none more so than Schalow, who was nearly Brian Valenta-esque as he surged to the lead.

As one of the top college players in the country and a power player, Gasn is used to lofting the cap and very good at it. But late in Sunday’s semis, he had torn open the base of his thumb and even patched up, it was noticeably impacting his shotmaking with the force used in lofting the cap.

But the lanes were freshly oiled for the 5-man stepladder finals on lanes 13-14 at Cherry Lanes in the Diamond Jo Casino complex and that ended the cap lofting.

And after Shea Bittenbender downed Brunswick staffer Dave Beres 234-203 in the opening match, Gasn went back to the scoring machine he was early on Sunday on the difficult pattern designed by Cherry Lanes manager Bob Hochrein, defeating Bittenbender 229-179, Miller 227-170 and Brunswick staffer Schalow 253-166.

All three of those losing bowlers made better shots than their scores indicated, but some bad breaks — notably a sixth frame 4-7-9 by Bittenbender between strikes — and some touchy ball reaction doomed them to low scores.

Miller, for example, had a pair of 2-10s, a 2-8-10, a 4-pin and one strike on lane 14, while Schalow had a pair of 2-10s on 13 with different balls.

Gasn, meanwhile, used a rough surface Roto Grip RUMBLE (sorry for wrongly stating that it was a HY-ROAD SOLID on the MichiganBowler.tv webcast) the first game and then switched to a shiny HY-ROAD — the 40th! he has drilled, he said — for the last two games, which is what he said he’d done off fresh oil earlier.

Other than Beres, who was playing up about 10-board, the players moved in from about 15-board at the arrows to about 20 at the arrows in the stepladder, with Schalow saying after he struck out in the 10th frame that he had moved even deeper and got a better reaction and should have been there at the start of the title game.

Gasn talked about lofting, his thumb, the stepladder finals, the balls he used and the tournament in general Sunday night on The Bowlers Show. Listen to the interview here.

First was $2,500, second $1,700, third $1,400, fourth $1,100 and fifth $900, down to $200 for 42nd and 43rd as the tournament paid out well above the total entry fees thanks to the sponsorship of Cherry Lanes and the Diamond Jo Casino, Coors Light and Storm Products. Greater Iowa Bowling Association operator Joe Engelkes also donated more than half of the bracket proceeds to fund $150 checks to three seniors and two women.

As soon as Engelkes gets the full results and tournament report posted, I will add them. The PDF from qualifying and a picture that captures most of the results of the last several games of competition is among the pictures at the end of this blog. My story on qualifying is here.

The semifinals featured a format from the fertile mind of Mike Flanagan that most of the bowlers praised as different and fun to bowl. It awarded 1 to 43 bonus pins each game of the semifinals: 43 to the highest score, 42 for the second-highest score, down to 1 for the lowest score. It made for big swings during the day and a wild finish as fourth through 10thended up only about 20 pins apart.

I heard nothing but positive feedback — I am happy to hear any and all comments — on the format and the tournament, with the only negative being the workload it put on GIBA operator Joe Engelkes, his wife Rosie and daughter Jennifer and the time it took to figure the scores and standings each game. They had to figure the bonus pins each game and then enter both the scores and bonus pins for each of the 43 players player each game.

Still, we definitely will use the format next year and the tournament almost certainly will be on the same weekend. We considered moving it to the traditional bowling season in late September, but Cherry Lanes general manager Bob Hochrein said that would mean not being able to donate the lineage, which would be a substantial hit to the prize fund.

So make your plans for the third weekend of August next year. As soon as the dates are finalized, I will get a blog posted. Gasn’s plans didn’t include the 11thFrame.com Open until Wednesday, though I sent him and Carbonetto and former Robert Morris college teammate Marshall Kent and girlfriend Danielle McEwan messages inviting them. Kent, who now is a PBA member, bowled the PBA Regional in Ohio, but Gasn and Carbonetto elected to come to Dubuque.

I wanted them in the tournament because they are some of the world’s top young players and I wanted to see them competing, and they added prestige and credibility to the tournament.

I asked Engelkes to put me with Gasn and Carbonetto in qualifying — Joe lets bowlers bowl with who they want with random draws for pairs — and although I bowled terrible, I had a great time watching them compete.

One weakness in my writing is that I don’t have experience observing and/or competing with many of the top young players and I can’t provide as much insight as I can with players I’m familiar with.

I now have plenty of insight on Gasn and Carbonetto and can confidently say that they are every bit as good as I perceived — they proved it in Dubuque over the weekend. Carbonetto was the high woman in the tournament, missing the cut by just six pins and easily should have made it.

I met Kent and McEwan at the USBC Open Championships a couple of years ago and knowing these four a bit now, one thing that strikes me is how polished and professional they are as bowlers and people.

The way they (and many other young standouts) carry themselves at a young age and perform on the lanes is far advanced over how I was at their age — I had loads of raw talent but was pretty much a knucklehead — and I attribute that to all of the training available for kids today in youth bowling, college bowling, the Team USA program, etc.

I experienced none of that and learned what I learned competing with adults for money. I was very lucky to hook up with Rich Wonders’ great group and eventually learn what I needed to learn, but they certainly are more prepared for top level bowling than I was at their age.

While James passed up his final year of eligibility to turn pro, Gasn stayed for his final year and is working on a degree in computer science to add to the degree in business he already has earned.

The four young standouts leave for Thailand on Tuesday for a World Bowling Tour tournament and I wish them luck. I hope they and more young standouts can make it back to Dubuque next year.

Special thanks to Craig Elliott of MichiganBowler.tv for coming to Dubuque to webcast the event.

I also want to thank everyone who bought a T-shirt and donated to Green Acres Boxer Rescue. It's still possible to buy a T-shirt for a few more days before the campaign closes and the shirts are made and shipped. When we have a final donation total, I will update this blog.

To see complete finals standings and pictures for 11thframe.com Open go to: 11thframecomopen