SOUTH PLAINS LANES

champs Braxton Williams & Kyle Salazar

        Two bowlers captured their first career JBT titles in exciting New Mexico-Texas Conference action at Lubbock's South Plains Lanes.

        Williams was masterful in the scratch division stepladder, and had his closest call with a 200-191 win over Cortez Schenck in the first round.  Braxton then caught fire on the challenging condition, defeating first-time finalist Brandon Jaramillo 223-178, and following with a 227-181 win over Tom Crites to advance to the title game.

        Top seed Sara Vargas has been red hot on Tour lately, and fired a big game eight to lead a JBT scratch event for the first time.  She struggled early in the title match, though, and Williams got completely locked in, throwing the second highest game of the tournament in a 266-181 win over Vargas for the first title of his career.

        Kelly McNeil began her own climb up the handicap stepladder with a 209-206 squeaker victory over Morgan Ellis.  Another close match followed, with Katie edging Cedric Perez 222-216.  The semifinal match was the third straight with a single-digit margin, with McNeil this time beating 8 year-old Kayla Darling 213-209 to advance to the finals.

        Top seed Kyle Salazar had been at or near the top of the leaderboard all day, and he and McNeil engaged in yet another close match.  After Kyle finished with a tenth frame spare, Kelly needed to strike out in her tenth to tie- a tough task for anyone on the tough pattern.  McNeil couldn't get the strikes she needed, and Salazar came away with the 205-192 win and his first JBT title.

        Vargas was consoled somewhat by dominating the day's JBT Women's Series event, and capping it off with a 224-183 win over Adel Wahner, good for her fifth Women's Series win of the season. 

        Thanks as always to the great crew at South Plains for a fantastic job hosting us.  Want in on all the fun?  Check out the schedule and come on down, it's that simple!