LEISURE BOWL

champs Danny Cobine and Alexis Atkin

        Danny Cobine and Alexis Atkin added to their JBT title collection to wrap up the NM-TX Conference regular season, in exciting action at Albuquerque's Leisure Bowl.

        Derek Acuff opened up the scratch division stepladder finals with a 210-201 win over William Yoder, who was nonetheless excellent on his well-practiced 10-pins.  Cobine then took over, beating Acuff 225-179, and following with a 210-208 thriller over Matt Helmick to reach the finals.

        Top seed Kyle King took over the lead in game three and dominated the event on the challenging pattern.  However, Cobine started the match red-hot, and gave Kyle no chance at one of his patented comebacks.  After running his string to the front seven, Danny finished with a 255-222 win, good for the fourth title of his JBT career.

        Nicole Pinge made her first handicap stepladder finals appearance a success with a 234-228 round one win over Noah Martinez, who ended up as the highest finishing male in the event, as the ladies took over.  Pinge then got be Andrew Griego 222-199.  Alexis Atkin then stopped Pinge 248-209 to advance to the title match.

        Top seed Joleigh Murphy came into the event just hoping to sneak into the Invitational, and did way more than that by taking over the lead for the last four games.  However, Atkin is in the middle of the all-conference Bowler of the Year race, and bowled like she wants it, rolling a second straight unbeatable game in a 252-230 win over Murphy, good for the fifth title of her JBT career.

        Atkin also won the day's Women's Series event, squeezing by Sara Vargas 180-174 for the title.

        The field is now set for the NM-TX Invitational, featuring $1,000 top scholarship prizes.  Thanks as always to the crew at Leisure for a great job as always hosting our Tour!