CANOGA PARK BOWL

champs Cortez Schenck & KJ Martinez

        An unexpected day of stratospheric scoring ended up with two of our most decorated bowlers earning additional titles in an exciting wrapup to the Southern California Conference regular season at Canoga Park Bowl.

        Four bowlers rolled perfect games on the day, tying the JBT record for the second-most in one day (the record is six, and the other time four were bowled was also at Canoga, in 2011).  Wesley Low surprised exactly nobody by shooting one of them en route to the top seed, but the other three were all great stories:  Peter Hugelmaier tossed his second one in just over a month, Alex Watanabe rolled his first in JBT competition, and Steven Acuff finally got off the hook with his first ever perfect game.  He almost fired his second one an hour later, but the 289 game that turned out to be was good enough for an 802 semifinal series, another first in his career, and vaulted him to the handicap division top seed.

        Ben Canfield (who earlier tossed a 290 game) kept the strikes coming, winning round one of the scratch division stepladder finals 268-199 over Austin Thompson.  In a squeaker next round, Ben got past Oscar Chan 224-221.  Cortez Schenck then turned the tables on Canfield with a 267-224 victory to advance to play for the title.

        Low and Schenck, the two current Junior Gold champs in their age divisions, made for a marquee matchup for the title, but unlike the whole day, scores were lower in this match as the lanes finally started to transition.  Cortez was able to make the adjustments quicker, and came away with the 215-185 win, good for the 33rd title of his amazing JBT career.

        Matthew Green opened the handicap division stepladder finals with a 197-175 win over Hugelmaier.  Green then edged Jake Hilton 193-183, before KJ Martinez came up with a huge game in a 290-169 stomping of Green to move on to the title game between the two most prolific bowlers in JBT handicap division history.

        KJ has the career edge on Steven for titles, 9-8, but Acuff has the lead on Martinez, 39-35, for career top 5 finishes.  In the title game, KJ struck early and often, and Steven was unable to catch up this time.  Martinez' 243-197 win made him the first handicap division bowler in JBT history to get to 10 titles, but Acuff could hardly be called a loser with his outstanding performance on the day.

        Samantha Sellers claimed her first ever Women's Series win with a 194-181 win over fellow Arizona bowler Marina Stever, who had her best performance since returning home from college. 

        The field is now set for the So Cal Invitational, where over 100 bowlers are eligible to compete for the $1,000 top prize in each division.  Want in on all this fun?  Check out our schedule and come on down., that's all you have to do! 

Both Junior Gold champs and our two most decorated handicap bowlers... quite a picture!