AMF PEORIA

champs Anthony Tripi & Danielle Stewart

        Anthony Tripi and Danielle Stewart ended long journeys towards JBT victory by capturing their first titles each in very exciting "oadotat" action at AMF Peoria Lanes.

        Oadotat is an acronym for 'one and done or two and through'.  After 5 qualifying games, the top 16 do traditional 1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15 matchplay, except the higher seed in each match only needs to win one game to advance, while the lower seed has to win twice.  This makes qualifying extremely important even though total pinfall is dropped, as evidenced by 12 of the 16 higher seeds winning their round one matches.  #4 seed Kyle King had the most emphatic win, tossing a 300 game to wrap up his match, the only perfecto of the weekend in Peoria.

        In the round of eight, Tripi beat #7 Nick Lee 199-176, King knocked out #12 Cameron Smith 216-178, #9 Michael Bonkowske upset #1 Curtis Lindeman, and in the thriller of the day, #3 Riley Dempsey eliminated #6 Deven Johnston in the second game 244-243 when Deven left a killer solid-9 on his fill ball.

        In semifinal matches, Tripi beat Dempsey 240-234, and King beat Bonkowske 211-204 to set up the title game.  Anthony, who lost his only other scratch title match appearance to King, had been on fire all day, and remained untouchable in the title game as well, winning the first game 226-204 to wrap up a very long-awaited first career JBT title- way to go!

        In the handicap round of eight, Stewart got by #6 Marina Stever, #15 Savanna Carr eliminated #7 Zachary Rapp, #12 Drew Stern upended previous day's winner #4 Maura Swaim, and #8 KJ Martinez put up unbeatable numbers against top seed Dominic Luna, who bowled great all day but was helpless against 279 and 285 from KJ!

        In the semifinals, Stewart got by Carr in two games, and KJ got by Drew, also in two games.  The 3rd place finish gave Stern the 21st top-5 handicap finish of his excellent JBT career, tying the all-time JBT record in that category.

        The title match ending was one for the ages (be sure to watch the video).  KJ was in control until a 10th frame Greek Church gave Stewart new life.  Martinez chopped the 6-9 off the 10 on the spare attempt, meaning Stewart could now go strike-spare to win by a pin, or 9-spare-strike to tie.  Danielle threw a beautiful strike on the first shot, but the next ball went right in the gutter, so now all of a sudden she had to spare to win, 9 to tie, or 8 or less to lose.  Somehow, Stewart recovered and got the spare for a 213-212 win, and the thrilling first title of the veteran's JBT career.   They each picked up $225 for first, courtesy of added money from Bowling Dynamics, a new sponsor of Arizona Conference events.  Be sure to check them out at bowlingdynamics.com and thank them!

        Thanks to everyone who bowled, and AMF Peoria for being great hosts as always.  Want in on all this crazy fun you'll only get at JBT events?  Check out our schedule and come on down, there's nothing more to it than that!