SCPL: Meteor Strikes BOUNTY at Little Dipper

It had been a rough month of June for John Speights. Fifteenth, twenty-fifth, sixteenth — the kind of cold streak that makes a seven-year veteran wonder where the flow went. So when the Houston player walked into Little Dipper Bar on June 21 for Space City Pinball’s “SCPL: Meteor Strikes BOUNTY at Little Dipper,” nobody was circling his name. Five hours and forty-eight games later, his initials were sitting on top of the heap.

This was a floor-wide takeover. Across the twelve machines Speights drew on his march to first, he posted the top score on five of them — Pokémon, World Cup Soccer, Godzilla, Strikes and Spares, and finally Memory Lane — and never once finished worse than third in any of his twelve rounds. In a group-knockout grinder where one bad ball can put a strike on your card, that kind of week-in, week-out consistency is the whole ballgame.

Twenty-Seven Deep and Nobody Folding Early

The Meteor Strikes field was a classic Houston league draw: 27 players, 19 of them IFPA-ranked, eight walk-ups still building a record. The strongest paper in the room belonged to Mike Flanagan, the field’s top-ranked stick at IFPA #1084 and a Texas NACS #49, with a seventeen-year career behind him. But this is the beauty of group knockout — ranking only buys you so much when you’ve got to keep stacking finishes round after round, and the format does not care how long you’ve been flipping.

The early rounds proved the point in a hurry. In Round 3, the strikes started biting on Stern’s 2013 Metallica (Pro), where Robert Ridall — barely two tournaments into his competitive life and ranked deep in the five figures — edged past Mike Lee, a sharp regular who normally averages a top-ten finish, in a grinding nineteen-minute four-player game. That is exactly the kind of upset that keeps a walk-up coming back. Meanwhile Speights was doing his quiet damage, opening with a runner-up on The Beatles (Gold), then putting up the first of his five machine-topping scores on the brand-new Pokémon (Pro), Stern’s February 2026 release that still smells like the factory.

The room itself deserves a nod. Little Dipper is a snug, easygoing Main Street watering hole that has built a loyal following by pairing a serious bank of pins — everything from solid-state antiques to current-production headliners — with espresso martinis, DJ sets, and a come-as-you-are crowd. Outside it was a brutal Houston afternoon, 88 degrees that felt like 101 with the humidity hanging at 75 percent. Inside, the flippers never cooled off.

Flanagan Digs Out, Catherine Gammons Surges

If you want a lesson in not panicking, study Mike Flanagan’s card. The veteran opened the night dead last on Williams’ 1980 Firepower, dropping a Round 1 four-spot before he’d found his footing. Then he simply went to work — a run that included topping Iron Maiden, The Beatles (Gold), and Godzilla — and clawed all the way back into the podium picture. Flanagan also kept his long-running rivalry with John Speights interesting; across twenty shared events Speights holds a slim edge, and on this night he protected it.

The genuine breakout, though, belonged to Catherine Gammons. A nine-year fixture on the local scene who finished 21st at this same monthly the month before, Gammons turned in the run of her year. She struck first on The Beatles (Gold) in Round 1 and never went away, banking wins on Pokémon (Pro), Foo Fighters, and a pivotal Quicksilver late. By the time the field thinned, she and Speights had split their four shared games right down the middle, two finishes apiece — the only player all night who could say she’d matched the eventual champ head to head.

Behind them, Craig Hughes kept his upward trajectory humming. Riding three top-three finishes in his recent slate and a rating on the climb, Hughes also got the better of his ongoing back-and-forth with Mike Lee, who has shared sixteen tournaments with him in a rivalry that keeps resetting to level. The trouble for Hughes was Speights, who finished ahead of him in all three games the two played — including a tidy twelve-minute duel on Bally’s 1994 World Cup Soccer in Round 5.

Quicksilver Thins the Herd, an EM Crowns the Champ

By Round 11 the bounty had come down to four: Speights, Gammons, Hughes, and Flanagan, all staring at the same Stern Electronics 1980 Quicksilver. It was Gammons who slammed the door, taking the machine while Speights settled for second — and the two third-place strikes landed on Hughes and Flanagan, sending both home tied for the final podium step. One game, two eliminations, and suddenly the bounty was a two-horse race.

That left the most fitting stage imaginable for a heads-up final: Memory Lane, Stern Electronics’ 1978 electromechanical throwback and, fittingly, the single most-played machine of the entire tournament. Picture it — a field that had spent the night on Godzilla and a 2026 Pokémon table, a full forty-eight years of design between the oldest and newest pins in the room, and the title coming down to clattering relays and a single drop-target playfield from the Carter administration. Speights and Gammons traded a thirty-five-minute marathon on the old EM, and when the last ball drained, it was Speights who had the score that mattered. The slump was officially over.

What the Bounty Means Heading Into July

For Speights, this is more than a Saturday trophy. It snaps an ugly run of mid-pack results and points a seven-year, 310-tournament career — one that peaked at IFPA #712 back in 2023 — back in the right direction just as Space City’s summer calendar heats up. For Catherine Gammons, the runner-up is a statement that her nine years of reps are paying real dividends; she’ll be a name to watch at the next Meteor Strikes. And for Flanagan and Hughes, the shared bronze is a reminder that on any given night at Little Dipper, the difference between the final two and the cut line is a single ball.

Final podium at SCPL:

• 1st — John Speights
• 2nd — Catherine Gammons
• 3rd (tie) — Craig Hughes & Mike Flanagan