AMF Peoria

champs Jory Koizumi & Blake Kalaf

        Jory Koizumi made some JBT history, while Blake Kalaf earned his fourth career win, in very exciting JBT Arizona Conference action at AMF Peoria Lanes.

        The scratch division as a group ran up the scores on the Cheetah lane condition, highlighted by 300 games from Curtis Lindeman and Koizumi, whose perfecto was the first by a female in JBT competition since Amanda Fry in the 2009 Main Event.  The 300 helped her to the #1 seed, a valuable thing in our 'oadotat' format, where higher seeds only need to win one matchplay game to advance, while lower seeds need to win twice.  She got by #16 Tim Crosswhite, #8 Joe Lewandowski, and #4 Kyle King en route to the title game. 

        Joining her in the finals was ASU teammate and fellow Hawaiian Aaron Yamamoto, who as the #2 seed beat #15 Bryan Van Sickle, #7 Cameron Smith, and #6 Lindeman to reach the finals, but now had to win twice against Jory to win it all.  Game one turned into a struggle, and it looked like Koizumi gave away the game with a tenth frame open, but Aaron returned the favor, resulting in a 163-158 win for Koizumi, and the first title of her JBT career.  She also becomes the first female scratch winner since Rebeca Reguero last season.

        Corbin Hirsch dominated the handicap division qualifying round, cracking the +200 barrier en route to the #1 seed.  He beat previous day's champion #16 Cierra Chamot, #8 Stan Bunce, and #4 Marguerite Evans to reach the title match.  His opponent was #2 Kalaf, who rolled past #15 Zachary Lewandowki and  #7 Nick Condon, before a 227-226 thriller against #3 Kristen Lee earned him a shot at the title.

        Hirsch almost wrapped up the win in game one, but his tenth frame open allowed Blake to win game one, and Kalaf took advantage of the second chance, throwing 235 scratch to run away with game two and the championship.  He and Jory earned an extra $25 each for the win courtesy of Bowling Dynamics, a sponsor of all 2011-12 Arizona JBT events this season.

        Jory's work wasn't done yet- the top female seed she still had the Women's Series title match to bowl.  After her crushing loss to Kalaf, Kristen Lee waited patiently for Jory to lose (which never happened).  When it was finally time to bowl, Lee came up with the 181-163 win, good for the first of three wins she'll need to qualify for the 2012 Girls' All-Conference Championship next summer.

        Thanks as always to the crew at Peoria for hosting our Tour.  Over $1,700 in scholarships were earned by bowlers of all ages and averages.  Want in on all this fun?  Come on out to the next JBT event, it's that simple!