NUGGET BOWLING CENTER

champs Mark Myers & Randi Speiler

        Mark Myers powered his way to another win, while Randi Speiler needed overtime to rack up win number five, in exciting JBT Mojave Conference action at Pahrump's Nugget Bowling Center.

        After five games on the challenging 2009 Junior Gold short pattern, advancing bowlers moved on to best 2-of-3 matchplay.  In round one, most scratch division matches went true to seed, with #7 Cameron Smith the highest seeded upset, falling 226-219 in the decider to "Dirty Dan" Hansen.  Dan did it again in round two, taking out top seed Curtis Lindeman (who had the weekend's high game, a 298 effort, earlier) in three games.  #2 Myers needed three games to put away previous day's winner Jakob Butturff, #3 Dallas Leong stopped #6 Zack Hattori, and #5 Riley Dempsey eliminated #4 Oscar Chan,  In single game semifinal matches, Dempsey beat Leong 244-215, and Myers stopped Hansen 248-194 to set up the finale.

        Mark and Riley are cousins, and title matches between relatives are always a little different, but no less competitive, as these are two of our most intense and successful bowlers.  This match turned out to be all Myers, as the two hander dominated for a 223-172 win, good for the 8th title of his JBT career.

        Carnage befell the higher seeds in round one of handicap matchplay.  #16 Gabriella Weis pulled the upset of the day by ousting #1 Andrew Guba, who had looked tough to beat in qualifying.  #2 Jake Smith suffered the same fate at the hands of #15 Steven Acuff.  When the dust settled, #8 Alexis Atkin was amazingly the high seed left after the first round!  She took advantage of that with a second round win over Weis to reach the semifinals.  In those semi matches, Atkin eliminated Acuff 238-182, while #12 Speiler stopped #14 Joe Gerencser 230-153 to reach the title game.

        Randi and Alexis, two of our most veteran ladies, both bowled very well in the title game, both really wanting the win, so it was appropriate that the match ended in a 217 tie, triggering a two-frame rolloff.  Atkin finished her rolloff at 43, forcing Speiler to fill 20 to tie again and go to another tiebreaker.  Instead, Randi came up with a clutch double, winning the rolloff, match, and title, the fifth of her excellent JBT career.  Atkin meanwhile increased her point lead in the Mojave Conference with the runner-up finish.

        After the win, Speiler had to go right back to work, facing Ashley Dunn in the day's Women's Series event, and Ashley took advantage of the understandably fatigued Speiler with a 204-168 win, the second of three wins she needs to qualify for the 2012 Girls TPC this July.  Dunn also closes the gap on the qualifying total for the JBT vs Australia challenge coming up in mid-March.

     Thanks to the great crew at Nugget for hosting our Tour for the first time in a few years.  Almost $1,200 in scholarships were earned by bowlers of all averages and ages- want in on the fun?  Check out our schedule at www.bowljbt.com, and come on down to the next JBT event, it's that simple!