HARPERSFIELD TOWNSHIP — The motivated athlete is a dangerous one. Dave Johnson certainly had plenty of motivation for this year’s Beacon’s Best Scratch Division Bowling Tournament.

There was plenty of motivation to stoke the competitive fires of the 48-year-old Ashtabula bowler as he entered the championship round Sunday at Sonny Lanes. It fueled him to his eighth victory in the history of the tournament under its various sponsors, but his first under its incarnation as the Beacon’s Best.

“There were some whispers about (lacking a Beacon’s Best crown), but a couple even reminded me that I’d never won it as the Beacon’s Best,” Johnson said after claiming his $1,200 first prize. “The (competitive) fires still burn.”

That might have been motivation enough, but Johnson was bowling for a couple of even higher purposes. Foremost of those reasons was winning in honor of the late John Elzeer, whom Johnson credits for launching him on his bowling path when he was a youth at Lake Shore League. That even included a brief run on the Professional Bowler’s Association tour.

He was truly on a mission when he got to Sonny Lanes.

“I wanted to win this one for John,” Johnson said emphatically of Elzeer, who died on New Year’s Day.

News of his victory spread quickly. Johnson’s wife, Laurie, called Elzeer’s widow, Nancy, with the information.

“Nancy told me John would be so happy,” Laurie Johnson said. “She told me before she went to bed tonight she’d hold John’s urn and tell him all about it.”

“John would say, ‘Finally,’ and I would say, ‘Yes,’ ” Johnson said.

The Johnson family is also dealing with the issue of the failing health of Dave’s mother, Lorraine.

“She’s been in rehab,” he said. “She’s not doing well. We had to take her to the emergency room this morning. I’d say I was trying to win it for her, too.”

To top it off, Dave Johnson is the latest member of his own family to capture a Beacon’s Best tournament. His daughter, Deanna, has won a title in the youth tournament and was the 2009 handicap tournament champion. His son, David, has also been a Beacon’s Best youth winner.

This victory, capped with a scintillating 279-254 victory in the final match over Ashtabula’s Scott Williams, takes the cake, though.

“This one means the most,” he said in assessing his eight tournament championships. “This is the most motivated I’ve ever been.”

All that certainly made the victory sweet, but it almost didn’t happen at all. He had to deliver some clutch shots in the last qualifying round Saturday night at Jefferson Lanes to earn the 12th and last qualifying spot into the finals.

“I had at least one bad game at all three houses (ABC, El Camp and Jefferson),” he said. “At Jefferson, I had to have a three-bagger at the end of the last game to get that last qualifying spot.”

But that was just fine with Johnson, who has missed the finals only once in all the years the tournament has been held.

“All you have to do is get in the final 12 now,” he said. “Everybody has a chance then. All I’ve ever asked is to have an opportunity.”

Given the opportunity, Johnson ran with it, actually ending up as the third qualifier for the stepladder finals among the top six bowlers.

Through it all, and with all the issues he was facing, Johnson went about business as usual. For him, that means constantly bantering with the crowd and his competitors, cracking jokes and offering encouragement all along the way.

It is a formula with which he has become accustomed, because he has learned to push his emotions into the background. How he carries himself is his means of focusing.

“I want to win, but I also want to see everyone do well,” Johnson said.

Johnson was so dialed into his task this time that he couldn’t even remember the last time he won the tournament.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “It was probably at least 10 years ago. I’ve always been able to keep my emotions in check and to focus on what I’m doing.”

Johnson has spent time at virtually every county bowling center, but Sonny Lanes is not one of them. It didn’t make any difference, though. At one point as the final matches were drawing to a close, he even joked about maybe having to make it one of his bowling stops for the future.

“I don’t bowl here at all, but I had the area figured out all across the alley right away,” he said. “Any really good bowler should be able to find his line and his shot right away.”

Perhaps the most important part of the day at Sonny Lanes was his final match of the afternoon to determine if he would be operating out of the winners’ or losers’ bracket for the rest of the tournament.

“Beating (defending champion) Ray Silva in the last game of the winners’ bracket was very important,” Johnson said. “There were some other matches earlier where there was a sense of urgency, too.”

Eventually, Johnson ended up as the No. 3 bowler in the stepladder behind Williams and two-time past Beacon’s Best champion Mike Lemponen. He actually liked that spot because it gave him a chance to get acclimated to Lanes 7 and 8, the championship pair for the stepladder finals.

“I’ve been in the position where I’ve been the one on top and that didn’t work out,” he said. “I figured, ‘Let’s try it from third.’ I’m a firm believer if it’s meant to be, it will be.”

As the No. 3 seed, Johnson didn’t bowl until the third match of the stepladder portion. Also coming out of the winners’ bracket meant a long delay.

“That’s brutal,” he said. “I probably had to wait an hour and a half before I bowled again.”

He had to wait and watch fifth-seeded Al Wintz, like Johnson an Ashtabula County Bowling Hall of Famer, defeat sixth-seeded Frank Cole, the tournament’s chief director, 197-163, in the first match of the stepladder. After that, fourth-seeded Mike Johnson Jr., another past champion who entered Sunday’s competition as the top qualifier, knocked out Wintz, 190-169.

That set up a meeting of the two Johnsons, who are cousins. The jokes were really flying in that match, even when Dave Johnson put together a string of strikes near the end of the game to win, 237-190.

That gave Johnson a launching pad into the penultimate match of the finals with Lemponen. A quality match it was, too, with Johnson requiring a string of seven straight strikes to outlast Lemponen for a 254-248 victory.

Williams knew Johnson was definitely on a roll when they got together in the last match. He had some pretty strong motivation, too.

“I really wanted to win this year because I’m moving in six days to Sandusky to become an executive chef,” he said. “I was trying to make my mark.”

But Williams also realized the challenge he faced.

“I knew what a legend Dave was,” he said. “I saw he had a good line going. And I’d had to sit and watch for a long time, too. I probably sat for an hour and half.”

Neither bowler backed down. Williams rarely blinked with just two nine-pin spares, but Johnson was flawless until the 10th, opening the game with nine straight strikes before leaving a six-pin on his 10th ball. By then, he had clinched the championship.

“I ran into a buzzsaw,” Williams said with a smile.

Johnson wasn’t even disappointed he didn’t add some icing to the cake with a perfect game in the title match.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “The title’s what meant a lot of me.”