GOLDEN PIN LANES

champs Cortez Schenck & Bella Flowers

        Cortez Schenck kept piling on the titles, while Bella Flowers proved once again that any age and any average can win a JBT event, in exciting Arizona Conference action at Golden Pin Lanes.

        Matt Zweig opened the mulligan format scratch division stepladder finals with a 183-165 grindout win over Adel Wahner.  Ben Canfield then had to burn one of the four mulligans he had stored up to ensure a 233-191 win over Zweig.  He faced another tough challenge from Tim Jacob, and needed to use another do-over to get past Tim 235-211.

        That left Ben and top seed Schenck, who had also saved up all four mulligans, to battle yet again for the day's title.  The difficult Viper pattern meant both bowlers had to burn through all their mulligans by the eighth frame, including a potentially costly one Cortez was forced to use  on a missed 2-8 spare.  However, Canfield was unable to find a look to take advantage of the rare Schenck error, and when he didn't strike in the tenth, Cortez escaped with the 231-210 win, and the 51st title of his JBT career.

        10 year-old Flowers put on a heartstopping show to climb the handicap ladder all the way to her first title.  She began with a tough 196-187 win over Kyle Ponzo.  The next match came down to the last ball, as she edged Elijah Melchor 188-186.  If that wasn't enough, she did it again in the semifinals, sneaking by Jacob Soulliere 201-199 to move on to the title match.

        Justin Lawrence continued his great great bowling by grabbing the top seed here.  However, he struggled in the title match.  Bella could be forgiven for slowing down after all that drama, but she came up with another solid effort in the title game, defeating Lawrence 217-203 for her first career JBT win!

        Wahner's fine day in the main tournament continued in the women's series event, as she beat top qualifier Bex Boyko 213-157 for her 9th girls title of the season.

        Thanks as always to the crew at Golden Pin for hosting our Tour.  Want to be a winner like 10 year-old Bella?  Just check out our schedule and come on down, that's all there is to it!