2015 DESERT OPEN

champs Dallas Leong & Jesse Becker

        Dallas Leong capped off an incredible summer with another major win, while Jesse Becker earned her first JBT title in major fashion, capturing their divisions of the 2015 Desert Open, hosted by Glenfair Lanes.

        The ultra-challenging marathon event involved 15 games of qualifying on three very tough patterns, followed by four rounds of matchplay, putting finalists through a grinder of up to thirty games in two days!  In the scratch division, Russ Oviatt led qualifying, and chose the 1:1 "Red Square" pattern for matchplay.  He and the rest of the top 8 seeds all won their first round matches, setting up a super-stacked quarterifnals.  In those matches, Oviatt snuck by Aaron Yamamoto in the fifth and final game, #3 Leong beat #6 Joe Grondin, #2 Ben Canfield ousted #7 Derek Acuff in five, and in a battle of Team USA bowlers, #5 Wesley Low swept #4 Cortez Schenck 3-0.

        Down to single game semifinal matches, Oviatt stopped Low 207-196 and Leong ended the stellar JBT career of Canfield with a 227-203 win to set up an incredible title match between Dallas, fresh off of defending his TPC title, and Oviatt, who was one of Leong's stepladder victims in both of those TPC wins. Unfortunately for Russ, the left lane victimized him with three 2-10 combos in the title game, while Dallas found a great look and an early five-bagger allowed him to cruise to a 236-171 win, 13th career title, third major of the summer, and an exclamation point on one of the best summers in JBT history.

        In the handicap division, Kyle Lawrence, the 2013 Desert Open champ and third place finisher last year, led two of the three qualifying rounds en route to the top seed, then squeezed by Jarred Star-Moncayo and Abby Franklin to reach the semifinals for the third straight year.  Relative newcomer Jesse Becker won two rounds to get to the semis, as did veterans Rachael Berg and Elijah Melchor, both with three game sweeps.  Meclhor then beat Berg in one semifinal 198-182, while Becker stopped Lawrence's run with a single pin win, 193-192, to set up the title match.

        Both bowlers bowled well in the pressure packed title match, but in the end Becker came out on top 223-208 for the first title of her JBT career.  In addition to the beautiful glass cactuses provided by Thunderbird Trophy, both bowlers earn 5 brackets, 25 raffle tickets, and a TPC quarterfinal bye in the 2015-16 season! 

        Thanks to Glenfair for a great job hosting our event, as well as all of our other sponsors- Ebonite, Racks on Racks, Valley Crest Landscaping, and Logo Infusion- for helping to make season 19 of JBT action such a resounding success.  It all starts over with season 20 of JBT action this September starting in Camp Verde and Flagstaff!