RIVERSIDE LANES

champs Jakob Butturff & Megan Carlson

        Jakob Butturff's amazing tear through the Tour continued as usual, but few of his wins may have been as sweet as this one, as Megan Carlson ended a long road to her first career JBT title, in exciting Mojave Conference action at Riverside Lanes.

        A big field meant an 8-person stepladder finals in handicap, and KJ Martinez began the proceedings with a 223 game that eliminated fellow JBT regulars Tervor Thompson (183) and Savannah Carr (190).  Martinez then turned up the scoring to a big 255 game two, eliminating Andrew Guba (220) and Gabie Turner (217) despite fine efforts from both.  In the semifinals, Teagan Smale's 223 was enough to edge Martinez (210) and Dee Handley (217) to advance to his first title match.

        Top seed Megan Carlson has done just about everything in JBT except win a title, despite many close calls over an otherwise terrific JBT career.  The title match was again bowled very well by both bowlers, but in the end Megan had enough left for a 234-215 win, earning her long awaited first career title, to the delight of her boyfriend Jakob Butturff, who was meanwhile making mincemeat of yet another scratch division field.

        Before Butturff did his thing, the scratch division stepladder opened with one of the most exciting matches in JBT history, as Austin Thompson and Ben Canfield each fired 11 strikes in a 279-279 tie!  Canfield won the ensuing rolloff 10-8 to advance.  The strikes continued in game two, with Jakob beating Ben 246-238.  Butturff then stopped Eric Hatchett, whose stepladder frustrations continue in an otherwise terrific season, 205-169 to reach the title match.

    Top seed Dallas Leong was looking to both stop Butturff's run and end his own stepladder frustrations, both Tour-wide and specifically at Riverside, but it wasn't to be. In a surprisingly low-scoring final, Jakob beat Dallas 205-188 for the title.  It's the 23rd of his career, moving him all alone into 6th place on the all-time title list.

    Marguerite Evans won her second JBT Women's Series title in three weeks with a 245-193 win over Erica Pursell.  She needs just one more win to lock in her spot at the Girls TPC this summer.

    Thanks as always to the crew at Riverside for their usual great job hosting our Tour.  Thanks to a good turnout, over $2,000 in scholarships were awarded in just one day!  Want in on all this fun- check out our website and come on down, that's all there is to it!