RED ROCK LANES

champs Derek Acuff & Jared Esquerra

        A wild day of high scoring ended with Derek Acuff and Jared Esguerra capturing JBT titles in Mojave Conference action at the beautiful Red Rock Lanes.

        The strikes started early and often, with Eric Hatchett beginning with 813, and Ben Canfield firing 800 even.  Including those, there have only been 25 junior 800 series in JBT history, and this was the first time two were rolled in the same day.  The high scoring continued into the super-survivor round, where the low game plus two lowest overall pinfall totals, were eliminated game by game.  Eventually down to three bowlers, Hatchett and Canfield still stood, but joining them was Derek Acuff, who had quietly gotten better all day long, and put the exclamation mark on the day by firing 300 in the semifinal match.  Needing to strike out to tie Canfield for second at 247, Eric only got eight on the fill ball for 245, breathlessly advancing Ben to the title game.

        Acuff, who fired 258 the game before the 300, came up with another 258 in the title match to defeat Canfield's 195.  That's 816 for his last three games, plenty to win the 13th title of his excellent JBT career.

        Scores were high in the handicap division as well, led by Michael Butz having a crack at the all-time 5-game series record, eventually settling for 7th-best ever at +279.  A big turnout meant a long super-survivor round, as 24 survivors were slowly carved down to six.  In that round, Kyle Andrews bowed out in 4th, Kevin Mette was eliminated in 5th, and Megan Carlson wrapped up a fine weekend in 6th.  The round of three was dramatic, with 9 year-old Esguerra's 241 advancing him to the finals, and Anthony Dang escaped as well with 223 when Butz couldn't strike on his second ball, finishing third with the 220 game.

        Dang found himself in his fourth title match of the season, still having yet to win.  This time he had to give 93 pins to Esguerra.  The quickly (and understandably) tiring Esguerra bowled one of his lower games of the day, but Dang also struggled, and the result was a 228-194 win for Jared, and the first title of his JBT career.

        Randi Speiler defeated Megan Carlson 228-194 to win the day's Impact Bowling JBT Women's Series event, the first of three wins she needs to get into the 2013 JBT TPC this summer.

        Thanks as always to the Red Rock crew for a great job hosting our event.  Over $1,700 was earned by all averages- want a piece of the fun?  Come on out to the next JBT event, it's that simple!