I have a question for the masses.  I bowled in a tournament recently, and felt that the rules of the tournament were not applied correctly. 

Here are the 2 rules that are relevant:

1.  Format - Round 1 - All teams bowl 15 games across 15 lanes using the Baker System scoring method.  The top 1/2 of the field will advance to the 2nd round.

2. Round 2 - All teams bowl 5 games with the top 5 teams advancing to a step-ladder roll-off.  The top 5 teams will be ranked on their 20 game totals. 


My question is, based on the rules presented above, what criteria do you think is used to determine who makes the 3rd round, or step-ladder roll-off?

My guess would be that they dropped pins for the teams that made the first cut and then used the 20 game totals to position the top 5 teams from the 2nd round.

I would read it like JohnP, though, and say 20 game totals to determine cut. 

I interpret those rules as follows:  round 1 is for survival, i.e. just be in the top 1/2 of the field and round 2 doesn't state anything about pin carryover, which means everyone starts over and the top 5 scoring teams from round 2 scores only would move on to the step ladder finals.  The seeding for the step ladder final would be determined by the 20 game totals.

Based on some of the other comments these rules are not as clear cut as they would seem.

I would argue that unless it specifies scores are to be dropped ( which is not uncommon ) then the first 15 game scores should have carried over to the second round.  I have seen it done both ways, but they always clearly specify the first round scores will be dropped when that is the case.