DESERT OPEN

champs Jakob Butturff & Greg Adler

        Jakob Butturff and Greg Adler captured JBT major victories as champions of the 2012 Desert Open Marathon, hosted by BRC Tri-City Bowl.

        The most challenging open-field format of the season tested bowlers with a 15-game qualifier on three different patterns, followed by matchplay which began with long best 3-of-5 matches.  Butturff qualified 9th, then swept #24 Kyle Karpovich, #8 Josh Tajiri (who earlier shot the event's only 300 game), then rebounded from a game one loss to beat top seed and defending champ Riley Demspey to reach the semifinals.  Jakob's semifinal opponent was #4 Cameron Smith, who won Bowler of the Year in four JBT conferences this season.  All Butturff does in spots like this against our biggest stars is win, and he did it again, with a 222-214 victory to advance to the title match.  In the other semifinal, #7 Oscar Chan stopped the great run of #14 Sven Majeske 191-185, advancing Chan to his second title match of the season.

        The title game, after two days and up to 30 games of bowling on grindout conditions, was extremely well-bowled given those circumstances.  Chan's tenth frame double forced Butturff to do the same for the win.  Jakob flushed the first hit, but pulled his second shot, then got the break of his career when the brooklyn hit carried, giving him the 232-224 win, and second consecutive major (he won the TPC just two weeks ago).

        Adler, coincidentally, also qualified 9th, then got severe tests in every matchplay round.  He began by coming back from two games down to defeat #8 Alexis Atkin 3-2.  He then lost the first game against his next opponent, #1 seed Austin Thompson, before rebounding for a game two win.  Thompson has been on an unstoppable roll since the final So Cal event, and needed to only spare a 2-pin in the tenth to keep the run rolling.  The ball touched the pin on the spare attempt, but it wobbled and didn't fall, giving Adler the breathtaking match win.  He then easily defeated #18 Kristen Lee in the semifinal, while #10 Marguerite Evans got past #17 Becki Meils in the other semifinal to set up an all-Californian title game.

       Evans kept it close in the first half of the title game, but Adler was able to pull away in the second half for a 231-210 win, his second career JBT title, and first major.  He and Jakob each earned $500, the famous glass cactus trophy, and most importantly, bonus brackets and raffle tickets at every 2012-13 JBT event they bowl!

        Thanks to the crew at Tri-City for hosting our event, which awarded over $3,900 in scholarships to bowlers of all averages and ages.  This was the 102nd and final event of the 2011-12 season- all the season stats are reset to zero, and we start it all over again with season 17 in two weeks!