SHAKE, RATTLE, and BOWL at Cliff Castle Casino

Champ Chelsea Zemelka (right) and Women's Series champ Allie Ijams (left)

     Labor Day was Ladies' Day at on the Junior Bowlers Tour in more ways than one, as Chelsea Zemelka beat all the guys (and girls) en route to her second JBT title, on a day where JBT made history with its first Women's Series event being simultaneously held, all at Cliff Castle Casino's Shake, Rattle, and Bowl.

     The scratch-only event used our popular scratchplay format, featuring matchplay even during the qualifying round, on a very challenging pattern.  Allie Ijams found the pattern very much to her liking, as she grabbed the #1 seed for matchplay as the only bowler averaging over 200.  Fittingly enough on the first day for our "Women's Series" side event, five other girls made the cut to the top 16, showing yet again that the girls more than hold their own against the guys in our scratch division.  Allie and Kaitlin Mayall had the top two 5-game female scratch totals, advancing them to the women's series title match, which was delayed longer than expected as both advanced to the round of 16 in the main event.

   Ijams won her round of 16 match over #16 April Urban, as did Mayall over #9 Theo Douthit, meaning the incredible coincidence of the  women's series finalists now having to play each other in the round of 8 of the regular tournament had come true.  In that match, Mayall won in 3 hard games, 215-191 in the third, to advance to the semifinals.  In other round of 8 matches, #4 Kyle King stayed alive for his third win of the weekend, beating #6 Kris George 2 games to 1; #7 Courtney Dutton beat #15 Alyssa Madrid 207-192 in game 3 to win 2-1, and #5 Chelsea Zemelka ousted #14 Miguel Lopez 200-197 in the deciding game for a 2-1 win.  Thus, for the first time ever, 3 girls advanced to the final four of a regular JBT event- again, with the women's series match yet to come!  We had it backwards- we should have had a "men's series" as a consolation for the guys! 

  In one game semifinal matches, King beat Mayall 215-189, while Zemelka survived over Dutton 158-153.  Thus, Zemelka, who didn't make the women's series title match, advanced to the regular title match, and would have to beat the Kyle King Express to win the tournament.  Meanwhile, the just-eliminated Mayall would square off against the girl she eliminated from the main tournament, Allie, in the women's series finale.  Did you follow all that? There will be a quiz later.

  In the women's series finale, Ijams avenged her loss to Mayall with a 195-183 win over Kaitlin, becoming the first women's series champion, earning a bonus at the 2009 JBT Girls Invitational. 

   Back to the regular tournament's title match, history would be made either way there as well, as Kyle was looking to: 1) become the 4th bowler in JBT history with 20 title, 2) become the first JBT bowler ever to win three events in one weekend, and 3) looking to win his 4th event in 5 starts this season, all monstrous numbers.  That could have easily intimidated Chelsea, a one-time winner making her first JBT scratch title match, but it absolutely did not.  Not only did she open up with a beautiful 4-bagger, she recovered from a late open with ninth and tenth frame strikes to wrap up a 235-212 win over King, an extremely impressive second career title - and the second scratch win in an open event by a female bowler in four months.

      Wow, what a day!  Huge thanks to everyone at Cliff Castle for always being great hosts for our Tour.  $1,170 in scholarships was awarded to the 42 player field- want in on the fun?  Come on out to the next JBT event, it's a simple as that!