Canoga Park Bowl

champs James Hawkins & Justin Villa

        On an historic day in JBT history that re-wrote much of the record books, James Hawkins and Justin Villa outstruck everyone else to capture JBT titles in stunning Southern California Conference action at Canoga Park Bowl.

        The 'high' in Kegel's 'high street' lane condition evidently means high scores, as a JBT-record FIVE 300 games were bowled on the day, by Wesley Low (in the handicap division), Keyon Lemus, Travis Zehntner, and Devin Bidwell, who rolled TWO 300 games- only the third bowler in JBT history to have two perfectos on the same day.  Each bowler receives the JBT-exclusive 300 ring, our 300 club shirt, will be on our banner and website honor roll for life, and will split the $2000 300 bonus scholarship, sponsored by our title sponsor, Ebonite- wow!

        How else to quantify this bizarre day? The handicap division 5-game cut was our highest in our nearly 700-tournament history, at an even +100.  The scratch cut was the third highest ever, +108 (that's a 221 average to be in the top half!), and the highest since 1999.   Villa's 5-game total of +318 was the 2nd highest ever, and +430 8-game total was the 6th highest ever.  We put out a lot of very difficult lane conditions throughout a JBT season, but this really goes to show what happens when our talented bowlers have a few boards (okay, arrows) to play with!

         The handicap division stepladder finals opened with Adam Dubia defeating Isaiah Cleveland, who was making his third consecutive finals (the other two in the Mojave Conference), 230-186.  Wesley Low then flirted with 300 again in defeating Dubia 267-205.  Low then got past a tough match with Vincent Nolan 245-234 to reach the title match against top seed Villa.

        Wesley is low in stature but not in heart, as the little lefty cranker and Villa, a hard throwing righty, engaged in a very well-bowled title match.  Both bowlers started with doubles and left some corner pins in the middle frames.  In the end, Justin needed a strike in the tenth to win, and got exactly that for a 226-221 win and a long awaited first career JBT title.

        The scratch division used our PBA format, with best 2 of 3 matches after a cut to the top 16.  Top seed Kyle King fell victim to the top seed jinx, as #16 Kaitlin Mayall swept Kyle in two games.  #2 Kevin Jones had no such trouble, sweeping his match, while in the only matches to go 3 games, #3 Matt Cormack survived over #14 Shane Peck, and #5 Travis Zehntner used his 300 to fuel a win over #12 Patrick Smith.

        In the round of 8, Cormack edged Brandon Kraye 2-1, Hawkins swept Cameron Smith 2-0, Jones swept Zehntner 2-0, and in a thriller, Devin Bidwell eeked by Mayall 2-1 with a 246-238 win in the third.

        In one game semifinal matches, Cormack beat Jones 255-245, and Hawkins defeated Bidwell 260-216 to advance to the title match.  In the finale, each bowler could easily have had the front nine as the few 9-counts there were were all bad breaks.  However, Hawkins' 10th frame double shut out Cormack, and the 259-236 finale was good for the 6th title of the talented two-hander's JBT career.

        Thanks as always to the crew at Canoga for a great job hosting our event.  Over $1,400 in scholarships were awarded- want in on the fun?  Come on out to the next JBT event, it's that simple!

The historic five 300 shooters: Keyon Lemus, Devin Bidwell (twice!), The Badger, and Wesley Low