AMF FIREBIRD

champs Brandon Jensen & Fayth Stewart

        Brandon Jensen and Fayth Stewart picked up impressive wins in exciting JBT Pacific Northwest Conference action at AMF Firebird Lanes in Salem.

        Stewart steamrolled her way through the 8-bowler stepladder finals, beginning with a 260 game that edged Kerissa Andersen (253) and Hannah Abney (214).  Stewart turned it up even higher in round two, this time firing 264 to oust Lohrghan Ziegler (231) and Perrin Easley-Clark (230), despite fine efforts from them both.   The semifinal match was much closer, but again Fayth came away with teh win, as her 224 beat Bailey Peters (222) and Matthew Salinas (183).

        Top seed Austin Vik-Rae pulled away from the field with a big semifinal set, but struggled in his first career title match.  Stewart was slowing down as well, but still had enough left for a 197-181 win, completing the ladder climb and capturing her first career JBT title.

        Scratch division bowlers enjoyed a new format, 'double nervewracker', which is a twist on our 'survivor' format, with the bottom two bowlers on each pair, each game, are stuck doing a one-shot rolloff to stay alive.  Twelve semifinalists were carved down to four, and in that round Jerry Jenning's rolloff strike ousted Chris Tuholksi.  Now with three bowlers, Jensen advanced with 269, while Brian Monnette and Jennings, both of whom had survived many nervewrackers already, had to face each other to stay alive, and Jerry's 8 count beat Brian's 5 to advance to the title match.

        Jensen blasted out of the gate with six of the first seven strikes, and cruised to a 234-169 title match win, good for his third career JBT title.

        Candice Goldfinch averaged an impressive 220 in the qualifying round, then beat Bailey Peters 186-177 to capture the day's girls' title.  It's her third win of the season, qualifying her for the Girls TPC this July.

        Thanks to the great team at Firebird for a great hosting job in a packed house- want in on all this fun and excitement for all ages and averages?  Just check out our schedule and come on down!