SILVA LANES

champs Nick Devlin & Destiny Johnson

        Nick Devlin and Destiny Johnson wrapped up the NM-TX Conference regular season with exciting wins at Albuquerque's Silva Lanes.

        Chris Ortega opened the scratch division stepladder finals with a 195-150 win over Blayne Hurst.  Ortega then beat another Texan, Zach Wojciechowski, 227-178, but found Oregon's Nick Devlin too tough to handle, with Nick winning 209-165 to move on to the title match.

        Top seed Cortez Schenck survived a cold and related back trouble to gain the #1 spot on the challenging Eiffel Tower pattern, but could only watch and admire as Devlin came up with by far the high game of the day in a blistering 269-207 win, good for the 13th title of his excellent career.  The win moved him ahead of his buddies Harley Sweigart and Russ Oviatt in a great three-way title race, but only for literally about seven minutes, as Harley was winning a JBT event in California at almost exactly the same time!

        Allie May, recently retured to JBT action, began a climb up the handicap division stepladder with a 200-191 squeaker over Justin Hackney.  May then defeated first time finalist Shaneice Williams 237-204, and followed with a 198-187 win over Jay Heffer to climb up to the title match.

        Destiny Johnson took a chance to come out from Phoenix to try and sneak into the top 10 for an Invitational berth, and succeeded in style, claiming the #1 seed.  She defended that seed with a solid title match performance, stopping May 208-177 for the 4th title of her JBT career.

        Destiny also appeared in the day's girls title match as the #2 seed, but the top seed would prevail there as well, as Amelia Fasting led qualifying by over 100 pins, and finished off with a 191-147 win over Johnson for her second straight girls title.

        Thanks as always to the team at Silva for hosting us.  Exactly 100 bowlers now qualify for the NM-TX Invitational, where over $5,000 in scholarships will be awarded!