Up Your Alley: Tournament of Champions on tap

The Silver Foxes Bowling Club is hosting its season-ending Tournament of Champions at Cedar Lanes in Fresno at noon this Saturday.

Entry fee for this special event is $50.

There are 134 members from the valley and central coast who have qualified for the TOC.

Your lane assignments will be issued upon registration and on a first-come, first-served basis.

Prior to the tourney, the club will be holding its general meeting at 9 a.m. The office of the president and six directors will be up for election for 2011-13. Up for discussion will be the rules and duties of the directors, a proposed tournament fee increase and the schedule for the 2011-12 season.

The club is looking for directors from our area and Modesto. You must be in attendance to be nominated and voted in. The meeting is open to all club members.

The new Blue Hammer bowling ball was released on June 15, and Jason Walton's pro shop at Yosemite Lanes has it in stock now. The new Blue has a urethane coverstock with the core of the Hammer Vibe. Walton has it on sale for $135, which includes drilling a thumb slug and finger inserts.

If you order any ball from him, he can normally have it in two to three business days. A new addition to his shop is the new resurfacing machine, which can bring your ball back to factory specs.

The pro shop can be reached at (209) 343-8484.

Jim Mullings, rolling for Weimer Farms in the Thursday night Jubilee at Bellevue Bowl, shot the highest series in his career. He rolled all deuces during the night, starting with a 223, 211 and 200 for a great 634 series. Dennis Gray kept up his recent pace with another 700 series, a 714 highlighted by a 279. Carol Almeida has the right idea -- get the same score every game. She had a 179 triplicate.

The PBA Western Regional -- the sixth annual Vanessa Brown Homes Open held at Yosemite Lanes in Modesto -- is in the record books. Michael Haugen Jr. of Cave Creek, Ariz., took home the title Sunday by defeating Chuck Tillson of Rohnert Park. His victory netted him $2,000. Tillson received $1,200.

Haugen is a regular on the PBA tour. A total of 59 West Coast pros were rolled over last weekend. The house was packed on Friday afternoon and Saturday evening for Yosemite's pro-am tourney. The highlight on Saturday was San Francisco's 49ers quarterback Alex Smith trying his hand at bowling.

The Merced/Atwater Women's 500 club is in the process of holding its annual membership drive. This year, however, they have added a little twist to the drive.

The drive started the last week of May and will end on Sept. 4. Any new member joining the club will have their name placed in a drawing for a $75 gift certificate from Bellevue Bowl. Former members rejoining the club will have their name placed for the drawing for a $25 certificate. The drawing will be held during the club's invitational tournament on Sept. 4.

Annual dues are $10.

USBC Hall of Fame member Leanne Barrette Hulsenberg defeated reigning Open champion Kelly Kulick 218-183 to win the 2011 U.S. Women's Open in Dallas, Texas. They were bowling on a special pair of lanes constructed on the 50-yard-line of Cowboy Stadium.

She claimed her first title in nearly a decade and a check for $50,000. Hulsenberg won her last pro title on Sept. 19, 2002, at the Tree Rivers Open in Pittsburgh.

The Open was sponsored by Ebonite International and the Bowling Proprietors' Association of America. "On a bowling level, it's special because I've been with Ebonite for 20 years and they had so much to do with this tournament," Hulsenberg said.

Her and her husband Gary operate a pro shop at Fireside Lanes in Sacramento.

GONE BOWLING: This will be my last column for this summer. I will return the first week in September. Have a cool summer, and make sure you hit the head pin.

Don Surdich is the Sun-Star's bowling columnist and can be reached at (209) 777-1111 or via e-mail at desurdich@aol.com.