STARLIGHT LANES

champs Dallas Leong and Jeremiah McClelon

        Dallas Leong and Jeremiah McClelon wrapped up the NM-TX Conference regular season with exciting wins at Starlight Lanes in Bernalillo.

        Zach Wojciechowski already had a highlight before the stepladder finals, firing a perfect 300 on an otherwise very low scoring day.  He continued the big day with a 218-168 win over Sara Vargas.  'Wojo' then put up an impressive two-fer, beating Team USA players Wesley Low (195-181) and Cortez Schenck (188-177) in succession to reach the title match.

        The reward for running that gauntlet was a third Team USA member, top seed Dallas Leong.  Leong made the long trip from Las Vegas worth it, stopping Wojciechowski 253-150, for the title.  He becomes just the 36th bowler in JBT history to reach the 10-title mark in his excellent JBT career.

        Eight bowlers made the handicap stepladder thanks to a good turnout, and Zack Long threw a clutch double in the tenth to win round one with a 194 over 189 efforts from Taylor Herson and Montana Cdebaca.  Long then turned it up to 239 to eliminate Thomas Whitley (204) and Xzavier Rede (205), a 6 year-old making his second consecutive finals.  Another youngster, 8 year-old Jeremiah McClelon, then rolled 197 to stop Jarred Starr-Moncayo (191) and Long (170) to set up the title match.

       Justin Hackney claimed the top seed after eight tough games, but McClelon came up with his high game of the day to roll to a 241-204 win, and his first career JBT title, beating big brother Rob to the punch.

        Adel Wahner capped off a great NM-TX girls season with a 168-158 win to earn the day's girls title.

        Thanks as always to the team at Starlight for a great job hosting our Tour.  The field is all set for the NM-TX Invitational, with over $5,000 to be awarded to the happy qualifiers!   .