Outside District 82, broken clouds parted over De Pere as twenty-four pinball competitors stepped into the glowing arcade sanctuary for Friday night match play. While the Wisconsin evening hovered at seventy-three degrees with fifty-five percent humidity, the athletic intensity inside ran blistering hot. Contenders ranging from day-one walk-ups to battle-tested ten-year IFPA veterans spined their focus toward forty-eight scheduled group games. Under low, flashing classic arcade lights, the gentle dinging of mechanical bells set the stage for one hundred and forty-five minutes of pure competitive grit.
When the final audited scorecards landed on the desk, the night belonged entirely to hometown favorite Chuck Blohm. Entering the arena as the nation’s twelve-hundred-and-fifty-fourth ranked athlete, Blohm put on an absolute offensive clinic. He topped the field by putting up the tournament’s undisputed high score on four of the eight playfields he touched. It was a dominant display of flipper mechanics that left a loaded regional draw scrambling to keep pace.
Blohm’s Opening Salvo on Tommy and Xenon
Blohm wasted zero time establishing his floor general status in Round 1, immediately seizing the top spot on his group’s leaderboard. Stepping up to Data East’s rock-and-roll spectacle The Who’s Tommy Pinball Wizard, the De Pere native systematically dismantled the layout for a maximum seven points. He left visiting contenders Mike Carlson and veteran archivist Carl Klitzke battling for the runner-up scraps alongside Joe DeCleene in a tight thirty-minute clash.
Not content with a single opening statement, Blohm pivoted directly to Bally’s legendary 1980 sci-fi creation, Xenon. Once again, his initials—YUK—flashed atop the scoring displays as he swept the four-player card with another seven-point deposit over Carlson, Klitzke, and DeCleene. Under the nostalgic arcade lighting of District 82, where Tournament Director Erik Thoren keeps eighty-six cabinets playing in immaculate shape, Blohm looked untouchable. Patrons sipping complimentary coffee watched an athlete operating at the absolute peak of his mechanical powers.
Grinding Through Friction on Gottlieb’s Volley
Even the greatest pinball athletes face inevitable playfield friction, and Round 2 delivered Blohm’s only major check of the evening. On the wide-body flow of Williams’ Demolition Man, his flipper timing slipped just enough to drop him into fourth place with a single point. Meanwhile, Green Bay challenger Brandon Peltier surged ahead to claim the seven-point win, edging out Erik Smith and Eric Quella. Across forty-six shared tournament appearances, Blohm has finished ahead more often than Peltier, but Peltier’s upward rating trend over the past year made this matchup a heavyweight bout.
True champions reveal their grit in how they handle a bad drain, and Blohm immediately answered the bell. He stepped up to Gottlieb’s classic 1976 drop-target arena, Volley, and displayed absolute wizardry in nudge mechanics. Blohm racked up his third playfield high score of the night, finishing well ahead of Quella, Peltier, and Smith. That crucial rebound secured him a second-place overall standing for the round, keeping his championship trajectory firmly on track.
Seizing Momentum Down Memory Lane
As Round 3 commenced, the twenty-four-player draw—featuring eighteen IFPA-ranked contenders and twenty-one Wisconsin state-ranked NACS grinders—pressed into the grueling back half of the card. Blohm found himself locked in a tactical duel with Quella on Data East’s 1993 blockbuster, Jurassic Park. Quella navigated the dinosaur-infested ramps with surgical precision to take first place, forcing Blohm to settle for a gritty five-point second place. Behind them, Peltier took third while rising contender Sebastian Martin fought for traction in fourth.
Unfazed by the runner-up finish, Blohm marched over to Stern Electronics’ 1978 solid-state creation, Memory Lane. With his flipper accuracy locked in, he dismantled the vintage layout to capture his fourth absolute machine high score of the evening. He bested Peltier, Quella, and Martin in the process, proving that his offensive arsenal could adapt to any era of pinball craftsmanship. By the end of the round, Blohm held steady in second place overall, perfectly positioned for the final stretch.
Surviving The Walking Dead Gauntlet
The tournament’s dramatic arc peaked in Round 4 when three leading powerhouses—Quella, Blohm, and Peltier—were drawn into a decisive showdown with Rowan Walters-Giblin on Stern’s The Walking Dead (Pro). Designed by craftsman John Borg with haunting audio by Brian Schmidt and brilliant software code by Lyman F. Sheats Jr., this 2014 supernatural arena demands absolute composure. Competitors must relentlessly battle the animated prison toy and its treacherous ball-capturing magnet. Savvy athletes know that exploiting the sensitivity of the lower jet bumper is paramount; aggressive cabinet shaking keeps the ball bouncing up high all day for massive points.
In a thirty-two-minute marathon of physical endurance, Quella weathered the zombie onslaught to snatch first place and seven points. Blohm fought tooth and nail to secure second place with five points, holding off Peltier and Walters-Giblin. Blohm immediately backed up that gritty effort with another clutch second-place finish on Williams’ Alien Poker behind Peltier. Those back-to-back five-point deposits mathematically insulated his overall tournament lead against the chasing pack.
Elsewhere on the floor, Round 4 delivered fierce athletic drama across the remaining groups. On Williams’ 1981 fantasy creation Barracora, Sebastian Martin edged out Jason DePas in a tense twenty-four-minute four-player clash. Martin capitalized on the layout’s unique multiplier mechanics, where Green and Orange targets multiply each other for up to twenty-five times the points. By carrying his green multipliers over from ball to ball, Martin secured first place over Carl Klitzke and Erik Smith, while veteran Tom Schmidt quietly locked down fourth place overall in the tournament standings.
Four Playfield High Scores Land Blohm the Hometown Crown
When the final flipper dropped and Thoren audited the scorecards, that single resonant stat stood above all others: Chuck Blohm had swept the top score on four of his eight assigned arenas. In a national draw boasting an average rank of 3902 and headlined by top-500 talent like Thoren himself, dominating half your board is the hallmark of an elite championship run. Blohm finished ahead of rival Peltier in four of their six shared group clashes tonight, staying a step in front across their forty-six-tournament rivalry. As athletes grabbed their final complimentary waters and filtered out into the Wisconsin night, the final podium told the definitive story of Friday’s athletic grind.
Crowning the Winners:
- 1st Place: Chuck Blohm
- 2nd Place: Brandon Peltier
- 3rd Place: Eric Quella
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