Doyle Memorial Singles Scratch Tournament held at Rose City Lanes

The eleventh annual Doyle Moncur Memorial Singles Scratch Tournament, which honors late Lovell bowler Doyle “Smoothie” Moncur, was held on Sunday, Nov. 5.
Forty-seven entrants from Wyoming and Montana competed in the tournament. In order to qualify, bowlers had to be 18 or over, out of school and an active member of the United States Bowling Congress. The top qualifier was Ryan Wells of Cowley with a score of 982. After two qualifying shifts, the players were cut to 32 for match play.
Under the tournament format, the 32nd ranked bowler played against the first ranked bowler, the 31st ranked played against the second ranked, and so on. In the matches, singles games were played, and a player was out of the tournament after losing two games.
The final match was the undefeated player against the winner of the losers bracket. The undefeated player only had to win once to be the tournament winner whereas the losers bracket winner had to win two matches to be the tournament champion.
The top local placer was Chester Gilliam of Lovell, who took third. He was the only local bowler in the top 10. Other top 10 placers included Doug Hayes in first, Craig Muri in second, Ron Engelhardt in fourth and Bate Baril in fifth. To round out the top 10, Houston Rabenberg was sixth, Robert Brown seventh, Damon Wilson eighth, Joel Berg ninth and Gene Simmons Jr. 10th.
Many locals competed in the tournament. Locals outside the top 10 were Ryan Wells, Stephen Townsley, Darin Henderson, Chris Christen, Mike Kitchen, Jorge Gaona, Casey Trautman, Josh Basset, Tyler Byrd, Jason Sumaya, Shawn Chouinard, Brian Bischoff, Ty Whiteman, Todd Philips and Don Whiteman.
The tournament was sponsored by generous local businesses. Rick Eadas of Rose City Lanes thanks the Bank of Lovell, Minchow’s Service, Cory Wilder of Snap-On Tools, Don Whiteman of DJW Plumbing, Haskell Furniture and Queen Bee Gardens for their sponsorship support.