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Bowling

Winter Garden team rallies in Seminole

Sign Producers weathers close calls throughout to win World Team Challenge.

By PHIL GULICK
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 10, 2003

SEMINOLE -- Sign Producers of Winter Garden rallied in the final game to defeat Team Vicious Hammer of Fort Lauderdale and win the ABCb.line World Team Challenge on Sunday at Seminole Lanes.

Brian Brazeau's Pro Shop of Ocala finished third, the Xmen from Orlando were fourth and Vic Telemarketing of Feeding Mills, Maine, was fifth. Sign Producers earned $2,640, merchandise and expenses paid to the TWC Grand Championship in November.

Sign Producers, then Scime Signs of Windemere, won its debut at Seminole Lanes 10 years ago at the ABCBrunswick World Team Challenge. Mark Scime and Bob Handley remain from the original team.

It was Handley, a veteran PBA regional player, who put his squad into the final eight for Sunday's Baker match play and eventually into the championship circle.

"We barely made it out of the Saturday qualifying and we struggled through the match play earlier today (Sunday)," said Handley, whose team made the cut to the top eight Saturday by five pins.

Hammer went into the semifinals top-seeded with a 6-2 match-play mark, followed by Brazeau's at 4-4 and Sign Producers at 3-5. Only the top three teams made the finals for the two-game Baker showdown. In Baker play, each of the five players rolls two frames per game, total scratch pins determining the winners.

All through Saturday's 16 qualifying games and Sunday's match play, Handley was the team's leadoff man. "We got together before the finals and decided Bob should be our anchorman, and it paid off," Scime said.

Handley's squad -- Tony and Lenny Biondi, Ed Oakes and Scime -- defeated Brazeau's 431-381 in the semifinals. The winners reeled off five straight strikes in the first game and Handley closed it out with two strikes in the 10th frame.

Sign Producers won the first game against Hammer 213-183 for a 30-pin lead. Hammer chopped it down during the final game before Handley's mark in the 10th guaranteed the championship.

Mishmosh of Clermont finished sixth, Kegel Training Center of Sebring, September's winner here, was seventh and two-time winner Brunswick of Pittsburgh was eighth.

The event drew 32 teams, fewest ever at Seminole Lanes, which set the TWC entry mark of 111 teams in 1997.

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