Red Rock Lanes

champs Jordan Ferrer and Talon Hendrickson

        Jordan Ferrer and Talon Hendrickson each put on excellent performances to capture JBT titles, but it was a runner-up who virtually stole the show, in thrilling season-opening Mojave Conference action at the beautiful Red Rock Lanes.

        David Galvan opened up the handicap division stepladder finals with a 207-203 squeaker win over Veronica Schleicher.  Galvan then rolled past KJ Martinez 205-185, but the fourth place finish tied KJ for first on the career handicap top-5 finishes list at 23.  Jake Bryan then defeated Galvan 242-218 to advance to the title game.

        Top seed Talon Hendrickson stayed in control the entire game, while the two-handed Bryan struggled a little with the drying out lanes.  In the end, Talon sunk his claws into a 236-204 victory, good for the first JBT title of the Utah bowler's JBT career.

        Zach Hattori has just about done it all in youth bowling, and he added another chapter to his career with this stepladder performance.  Qualifying fourth, he began with a 268-225 win over Eric Hatchett.   Zack then rolled past 23-time JBT champion Cameron Smith 267-210 (that's 535 for two games).  Next up was Jakob Butturff, who has had the upper hand against Zack in a most recent JBT matches.  Jakob could only watch this time though, as his 207 effort fell to a perfect 300 game from Hattori, his first in JBT after many near misses and the exclamation mark to an 835 3-game stepladder set!

        Zack still had more work to do with top seed Jordan Ferrer, who used a 276 of his own (all this on the Scorpion pattern that yielded a relatively low -41 cut) to leap into the lead.  Hattori opened with a double, while Jordan went strike-spare, and at the rate that Zack was going, that looked like game over already.  That's not how Jordan saw it though, as he started stringing strikes from there.  Zack's only miss through nine frames was a spare in the seventh (on a wobbly 10-pin), and he finished with double-9 in the tenth for a 278 (totalling an incredible 1103 for four games).  That left Jordan with a chance to double-9 for the win, and Ferrer calmly stepped up and struck out for the breathtaking 280-278 win, and the sixth title of his JBT career- wow!

        Marina Stever won the day's Women's Series event with another exciting match, a 205-197 win over newcomer Andie Szekeley, who almost doubled in the tenth for the win.  Stever needs three wins to qualify for the 2012 Girls All-Conference Championship this summer in Vegas.

        Thanks as always to the team at Red Rock for another great job hosting our events.  Over $1,400 in scholarships were awarded to bowlers of all ages and averages- want in on all this fun?  Come on out to the next JBT event, it's as simple as that!