After right-hander Jon Schalow won the 2025-26 MAST season opener Sept. 7 at Prairie Lanes, left-handers won all seven singles tournaments heading into the Pabst Light Year End Championship.

So it was appropriate that left-handers Tristian Albrecht and Mike Hoffman met for the “MALT” Year End title Saturday at Spartan Bowl in McFarland.

This is simply what you should expect in modern bowling when a tournament uses house shots or soft Challenge shots that are symmetrical in a field with talented lefties like Albrecht and Hoffman, who won three titles this season and has the second most in MAST history with 25.

The Year End Championship competed on the 2026 Kegel Tungsten lane pattern, which is  39 feet with a 36-foot drop brush and features 25.6 mL of oil — 15.99 mL forward and 9.61 mL reverse — and ratios of 6.25-1 middle-outside track, 1.55-1 middle-middle track, and 1-1 middle-inside track. The PDF of the pattern is attached to this story.

The MAST Year End featured a new 1-day format this year, with six games of qualifying and bracket match play. The 40 players were cut to the top 12, with the top four earning one bye. Players in 13^th through 16^th cashed.

Hoffman led qualifying with 1,491 on games of 267, 300, 279, 268, 259 and 218, MAST reported in this post. Here is the close of Hoffman's perfect game.

Albrecht advanced in sixth with 1,396 on 238, 235, 202, 247, 217 and 257.

Chris Gibbons and Chad Maas tied for fourth, with Gibbons getting the last bye when he beat Maas 50-28 in a ninth and 10th frame roll-off.

Danny Verdecchia recovered from a 159 in the third game with 705 over his final three games to jump from 27^th to 12^th, edging Schalow by 14 pins for the last spot in match play.

Schalow at 1,313, Cody Ramsden 1,307, and Brent Ritchie and Nick Powers 1,303 each earned the $150 cashers checks.

Hoffman, who has won five MAST titles at Spartan, beat Derek Eoff 494 (269-225)-362 (179-183) and Verdecchia 530 (299-231)-446 (217-229) to advance to the title match.

 Albrecht downed Jim Ring 410 (214-196)-397 (215-182), Kaiden Storck 493 (248-245)-439 (218-221), and Ryan Zagar 504 (259-245)-490 (269-221) to advance to the title match.

In the title match, Albrecht fired games of 279 and 256 to Hoffman’s 217 and 222 for a 535-439 win. Here is video of the title match.

Albrecht earned $1,500 and Hoffman $1,000, while third and fourth paid $750 each, fifth through eighth $400 each, and ninth through 12^th $250 each.

Full results are here.

MAST also recognized the top 10 in the season’s Pabst Points Race. Hoffman won the points title with 1,962 points, earning him $500. Eoff finished second with 1,951 points, winning $400. The rest of the top ten were Gibbons (1,740 – $300), Chris Pounders (1,623 – $200), Chris Jackson (1,594 – $180), Ethan Jones (1,580 – $160), Brent Ritchie (1,507 – $140), Matt Pursell (1,426 – $120), Trevor Habich (1,344 – $110), and Joe Johnson (1,340 – $100).

Title sponsor Pabst Light donated $1,000 to the tournament prize fund. Host center Spartan Bowl added $100.

The 2026-27 MAST schedule should be finalized and posted in late summer.