WEST SEATTLE BOWL

champs Cameron Weier & Bri Hemming

            Cameron Weier doubled his fun by sweeping the weekend at West Seattle Bowl in perfect(*) fashion, while Bri Hemming finally broke through for her first win, in very exciting JBT Pacific Northwest Conference action.

            Tyler Boe has numerous scratch top-5 finishes outside his home conference, but finally made one here, and in successful fashion opened the scratch stepladder with a 213-198 win over Tyler Cruz.  Boe then rolled past Perry Crowell IV 224-204, but nobody had yet beat Cameron Weier this weekend, and Cameron kept that streak alive with a 224-204 win over Boe to reach the title match.

            Marshall Kent dominated the tournament en route to the top seed, and if a Weier-Kent rematch wasn't a juicy enough storyline, the scratch bowlers were using the 'mulligan' format, where bowlers literally got 'do-overs' to strategically use throughout the day.  Cameron and Marshall both wisely saved up their mulligans, with Weier having three and Kent having two going into the title game.   On the demanding USBC Nationals pattern, the two 10-time champs put on a show, and with the aid of a few mulligans both bowlers ended up with the front nine strikes.  With his mulligans exhausted, Kent struck on his first ball, then left a crushing solid-7 on the second ball, finishing with 288.  Cameron then stepped up and flushed all three in the tenth (with three chances on the last ball but needing only one) for an "imperfect" 300, but an exciting and impressive one nonetheless, and the title, the eleventh of his JBT career, regaining the Pac NW lead in that category from- who else- Marshall Kent.

            Jessica Bubnich and Jake Mullen created some excitement of their own in the handicap stepladder with a 226 tie in match one, forcing a rolloff won by Jessica.    Hemming then took over, defeating Bubnich 234-197, and following with a 176-159 win over Kyle Hays to advance to the title match.

            Top seed Ryan Gallagher had an excellent tournament, leading since the fifth game, but struggled in the title match.  Fortunately for Ryan, Bri struggled as well, but in the end she had just enough left to pull out a 165-149 win, finally capturing the first title of her JBT career after quite a few close calls.

            Thanks as always to the great staff at West Seattle for hosting our Tour.   Over $1,400 in scholarships were earned by bowlers of all ages and averages- want in on all the fun?  Check out our schedule and come on down to the next JBT event, it's really just that simple!