Bai crowned men’s singles bowling champion

By LARRY ANDREW
LAE Bowling Club’s Alexsto Bai won this year’s national men’s singles on Sunday after beating Bulolo’s Zephaniah Goropo 21-12 in the final.
Matu Bazo won the third place play-off beating junior bowler Sammy Bazo.
All players received cash prizes.
The tournament saw event saw four centres Bulolo, Mt Hagen, Metro from Port Moresby and host Lae competing.
Centres that did not take part were Defence Club (Port Moresby), Goroka and Madang.
The two-day event attracted 36 bowlers who were pooled in four pools of nine players each.
Each player played six games on Saturday and three games on Sunday.
Bai from Manus, lost one game in his pool (2) and made the final against Bulolo’s Goropo.
The Bulolo-raised Sepik man, who is the son of former top bowler Thaddeus Goropo, took control early but could not maintain his lead as a fast-finishing Bai had all the momentum in the back end of the contest.
After Bai surged back to level the scores at 11-11 it was all the Manusian as he piled on another 11 points while Goropo could only manage a single point.
Bai’s win sees the Lae Bowling Club maintain its luster as the leading club in the country after producing the last three national men’s cahmpions.
Vevai Kalimu (2016) and Matu Bazo (2017) are the previous champions.
Bai said winning the pool fixtures with big score lines gave him the confidence that he would do well in the final.
“I played my club mate Sammy Bazo Junior in the semifinal and got past him to make the final. Me and Sammy play regularly here and I only played him last week in the club singles last week which I won and we met up again in the national singles semifinal so it was good.”
“It’s great to win the national men’s singles title for Lae,” Bai said.