LEISURE BOWL

champ Chris Brown

        Chris Brown escaped in the grueling 'battle bag' format to win his 6th career JBT title in exciting New Mexico - Texas Conference action at Albuquerque's Leisure Bowl.

        Chris threw a big fifth game to jump into the #1 seed for matchplay, where bowlers started with three balls, then played a best 3-of-5 match, with the winner of each game removing a ball from the others' arsenal.  After a first round bye, his match against #8 Derek Acuff (who came back from 2-0 against #9 Danny Cobine) turned into a thriller, as Acuff's 170-169 game four win forced a game five with no-thumber Brown down to a plastic ball.  Brown made an adjustment he didn't know he had, winning the deciding game to move on.  In other round of 8 matches, #5 Ahkeen Williams took five games to eliminate previous days champ #4 William Yoder, #3 Brandon Gill got past #6 Bree Vargas 3-1, and #2 Zach Wojciechowski used a huge 287 to beat #2 Tyler Masterson 3-1.

        In best 2-of-3 semifinals, Gill beat Wojciechowski 2-1, and Brown swept Williams to set up the title game.  With only one ball in the single game title match, skills were tested as both stuck with their best strike balls and had to adjust to spare shooting.  In the end, that was the difference, as Gill needed a mark in the tenth to win and nine to tie, but chopped two pins off the tricky 3-6-9-10, for a heartbreaking 202-201 loss.  What was tragedy for Gill was triumph for Brown, as it boosted his points lead with his second win of the season.

        The talented Vargas sisters squared off in the day's Impact Bowling Women's Series match, with Bree coming out on top in a 172-171 squeaker.  Girls need three Women's Series wins to get into the 2013 Girls' TPC. 

        Thanks as always to the crew at Leisure for a great job hosting our Tour.  Want in on the most fun around?  Check out our schedule and come on down!