SO CAL INVITATIONAL

champs Will Jackson & Jon Dukes

Will Jackson and Jon Dukes walked out with $1,000 scholarships each as champions of the 2007 JBT Southern California Invitational, held at San Diego's Mira Mesa Lanes.

After seven games of intense qualifying and a two-game last chance squad, 16 finalists in each division advanced to triple-elimination matchplay, creating almost four hours of do-or-die matches across the center.

Scratch division top seed Foster Phandanouvong rolled the event's only 300 game, but struggled in matchplay, finishing in 12th place overall.  13th-seeded Will Jackson was the star in matchplay, going undefeated all the way through.   After a 164 loss in round five (his low game of the day by far), #2 seed Christian Jensen caught fire again, tossing 726 his next three games to land himself in the title match, but with two losses, he'd have to beat Jackson twice to capture the tournament.

Jensen was up to the task in round one, coasting by Jackson 234-146, but the huge deficit was a blessing in disguise, as Will used the garbage frames to try differnt balls and lines.  The result was spectacular, as he turned the tables on Christian for a 235-222 win, finally capturing the first JBT title of his career, and nearly doubling his career JBT earnings to boot!

In the handicap division, Arizonan Taylor King had a great qualifying round en route to the top seed.  She did well in matchplay, but eventually bowed out in fifth place. 

The remaining four players engaged in a captivating round robin, handing each other losses and earning much-needed byes when an odd number of players remained.  In the end, Kaylee Riddle was ousted in 4th place, and Kaitlin Silva wound up 3rd, setting up a one-game title match scenario between #3 Brian Castelloe and #9 Jon Dukes.

Castelloe was already 1-2 against Dukes on the day, but was also the man to finally hand Jon his first loss, after he started matchplay 6-0.  Dukes had a comfortable lead early in the title match, but some late opens let Castelloe back in the match.  However, when Brian didn't strike on his first ball in the tenth, Dukes sealed a 227-221 win, good for his first career JBT victory.

182 qualifiers competed in this event, which awarded an eeeeenormous $7,520 in scholarships- wow! The top 20 season-long point scorers now move on to the 2007 JBT Touring Players' Championship, featuring a guaranteed minimum $2,000 first place scholarship per division! 

Big thanks everyone at Mira Mesa for being one of JBT's biggest supporters in California, and their fine hosting job.  Want in on the fun?  Come on out to the next JBT event, it's as simple as that!