BRC GILBERT

champ Eric Rubin & runner-up Steven Pizzi

Eric Rubin found the brand new Brunswick Zone XL Gilbert very much to his liking, capturing his second career title there in exciting JBT Arizona Conference action.

The almost sold-out scratch-only field was cut to 16 after five games of matchplay qualifying, with best 2-of-3 matchplay testing the bowlers for the next two rounds.  Top seed BJ Baker squeaked by always-tough Kris George in round one, which also featured #2 Theo Douthit, #3 Zach Hattori, and #4 Brian Weyrauch all getting through.

In the round of eight, Douthit squeaked by #12 Tyler Shipman 214-206 in game three, while lower seeds won the rest of the matches: #7 Rubin over Weyrauch 208-197 in the decider, #11 Steven Pizzi in a sweep over Hattori, and #8 Courtney Dutton doing the girls proud in a sweep of Baker.

Pizzi got by Douthit and Rubin beat Dutton in the semifinals to set up the final match.  In that game, Eric got the mark he needed in the tenth by striking to beat Pizzi 217-202, good for title #2 in his JBT career.

Big thanks to everyone at the fantastic new Zone Gilbert for hosting our event- this is an absolutely amazing facility, and if you haven't visited it yet, make plans to do so soon!