Del Rosa Lanes

champs Devin Bidwell & Matthew Miller

      Devin Bidwell and Matthew Miller opened the 2009-10 JBT Southern California Conference season with victories at San Bernardino's Del Rosa Lanes.

      Ryan Howard may have eventually lost to Bidwell for the title, but he did a lot of great work to get to that point, beginning with a 40-28 win over Patrick Smith in a roloff for the fifth and final stepladder spot.  Howard then edged Mark Curtis 158-156 in a grindout on the difficult Viper lane condition.  The Las Vegan then edged Brittany Page, another of our talented females who hang in there just fine with the guys, 187-184.  Ryan then turned it up with a 224-184 victory over red-hot Riley Dempsey, making his third finals tour-wide in 09-10 already, to advance to the title match.

    Bidwell, a former JBT Bowler of the Year, grabbed the lead in game eight, and was looking to end a streak of disappointing title match performances lately.  An opening triple helped him do just that, and he was able to take care of Howard, whose right-hand lane struggles did him in, 192-155, for his 5th career JBT title.

     Karlie Loop, always a factor in the JBT points races, got off to a good start again by opening the handicap stepladder with a 241-212 win over Leah Rivera.  The PBA has its "young guns", but Leah joins Stacey Lamb from Cliff Castle as one of our own "youngest guns", as the 7 year-old became one of our younger finalists ever.  Karlie rolled on in match two with a 219-187 win over Jordan Bibby, but then Miller stopped Loop 220-177 to advance to the title match.

     Top seed Kirk Chui had grabbed the lead from Miller in game eight, as Matt saw what seemed like an insurmountable edge evaporate in the semifinals.  It looked to be a collapse Miller couldn't reverse until late opens from Chui and good shots from Miller evened up the match going into the final frames.  After the rapidly improving Chui doubled, Matt needed to mark to win, and calmly converted a 10-pin spare for the 214-208 win and his first career JBT title.

     Over $1,700 in scholarships were awarded at the event.  Thanks to everyone at Del Rosa for a fine job hosting our Tour again.  Want in on all this fun and excitement for bowlers of all averages age 21 and under?  Come on down to the next JBT event, it's as simple as that!