SILVA LANES

champs Josh Helmick & Nathaniel Duran

        Josh Helmick kept his love affair with Silva going, while Nathaniel Duran finally stepped into the winner's circle, in exciting JBT New Mexico-Texas Conference action at Albuquerque's Silva Lanes.

        Trey Sledge slung messenger after blistering messenger in a 235-221 win over first time scratch finalist Joey Balistreri to open up the scratch division stepladder finals.  Helmick then took over, beating Sledge 231-216, and following with a 209-183 win over Danny Cobine, who earlier shot the event's only 300 game, to move on to the title match.

        Helmick's only other singles win came at Silva last season, but top seed Cole Schroyer threw three games of 270+ to grab the lead.  All that carry went away in the title match went away in the title match, as he left some brutal 9-counts to finish at 207, giving Helmick a chance to double for the win.  Josh calmly got up and threw two of his best shots of the day for a 214-207 win, and the third title of his JBT career.

         Elizabeth Romero made a statement to open the handicap stepladder finals, blasting a 256 scratch game for a 302-226 win over Krysta Carlisle.  Duran then took over the finals, defeating Romero 226-187, and then getting by Toby Cdebaca 256-224 to advance to the title match.

        Kory Hetmer stayed at or near the top of the leaderboard all day, but Duran, who has had a number of second place finishes in his career, was not to be denied this time, beating Kory 240-211 for the first title of his JBT career.

        Sara and Bree Vargas squared off in the day's Women's Series event, with Bree coming up with a big game in a 237-188 win for the day's crown.24-18 Seattle.  Honorable mention goes to Cori Anaya, who was the only bowler Tour-wide to correctly guess that the first score of the game would be a safety!

        The day's Super Bowl prop bet contest was won by Jacob Gill, who guessed 4 of the 5 goofy questions correctly, then had the closest final score prediction of

        Thanks as always to the crew at Silva for their usual terrific job hosting our Tour.  Want in on all the fun?  Check out our schedule and come on down, that's all you have to do!