SUNSET LANES

champs Ryan Nikolas & Carter Blankenship

        Ryan Nikolas remianed on his early season tear, while Carter Blankenship earned a title in his rookie event, in exciting JBT Pacific Northwest Conference action at Sunset Lanes.

        Chris Tuholski opened the scratch division stepladder finals with a 211-209 squeaker over Luke Jordan.  Nick Devlin, last season's Bowler of the Year, snuck back up north from ASU and defeated Tuholski 225-203 in round two.  Another bowler from the south, Las Vegas' Dallas Leong, also made the trip north for this weekend, and with his 219-179 win over Devlin, advanced to the title match and got the chance to win his seventh consecutive JBT title, which would extend his own record (nobody else has ever won more than four in a row).

        To make that happen he had a major roadblock in top seed Ryan Nikolas.  Ryan has always had the hot hand in Oregon, but is starting to make inroads towards dominance in any Pac NW event.  Dallas finally had something go wrong in a JBT title match, as he started to lose the look on the challenging pattern, while Nikolas gave him no opportunity to catch up.  Ryan won the match 235-187 for his fifth career JBT title, and second in three events on the new season.  There was no shame in the end of the run for Leong though, wrapping up the most spectacular title run in JBT history with the runner-up finish.

        Kyle Hays began a run up the handicap division stepladder with a 200-177 win over Maddi Durr.  Hays then turned it up with a 241-189 defeat of Austin Portalski.  Reagan Lorey then stepped in and stopped Hays' climb with a 230-206 win to advance to the title match.

        Top seed Carter Blankenship was a newcomer to bowling last year, and practiced hard all summer.  That practice paid off with a #1 seed here.  Lorey gave him a great run for his money, but in the end Blankenship escaped with a 228-223 win, good for the first title of his JBT career.

        AJ Schock made her first scratch division semifinals, and also nabbed the top seed for the day's Women's Series event.  She defended her seed with a 201-167 win over Elise Yates in the title game for the day's girls' title.

        Thanks as always to the crew at Sunset for a great job hosting our event, and all our sponsors who help make the events possible.  Want in on all this fun for all ages and averages?  Just check out our upcoming schedule and come on down, that's all you have to do!