AMF Imperial

champs Tyler Cruz & Andre Calipes

        Tyler Cruz and Andre Calipes opened the 15th season of JBT competition with victories in the Pac NW Conference season opener at Seattle's Imperial Lanes.

        Cruz climbed the ladder en route to his third career JBT title.  He began with a 214-201 win over Cameron Weier.  Tyler then beat Josh Mullen 251-206, and followed with a 247-169 win over Sam Burns to advance to the title match.

         Top qualifier Jeremy Witt opened the day (and the season) with the first ten strikes, finishing with 289 and the early lead.  He eventually ceded the lead to Cruz, who threw the event's only 300 game in game four, and followed it up with the front next game for a 22-bagger and the lead.  he slowed down considerably in the semifinals, though, and Witt regained the lead.  However, it was Cruz who had regained the momentum in the stepladder, and he was able to beat Witt 197-178 to finish the climb to the victory.

        Connor Gracia opened the handicap stepladder finals with a 171-158 win over Dalton Camosso.  Gracia then snuck past Thomas Nute 226-223, and followed with another nailbiter, 220-211 over Quinton Miller, to reach the title match.

        Top seed Calipes and Gracia both struggled in the title game, but in the end, it was Andre, who had been at or near the top of the leaderboard all day, who built a lead Gracia could not recover from.  Calipes won the match 187-163 for the first title of his JBT career.

        Thanks as always to everyone at Imperial for hosting our Tour.  Over $1,200 in scholarships were awarded to bowlers of all averages under age 22- want in on the fun?  Come on out to the next JBT event, it's as simple as that.