LONDON BRIDGE DAYS- DESERT OPEN MARATHON

champ Nathan Panaligan & runner-up Bill Grant

   Nathan Panaligan continued a dominant early season by capturing the JBT's London Bridge Days - Desert Open Junior Marathon, hosted by Havasu Lanes.

   A ten game qualifier held on grueling lane conditions resulted in a 174 average being good enough to make the round of 32 matchplay on Sunday, where best-of-7 matches meant bowlers could roll as many as 33 games on the weekend.

  After a phenomenal qualifying round which he easily led, top seed Christian Jensen fell to #32 seed Lana Lycan in round one.  Lana would carry that momentum all the way into the round of eight, where she came through with two consecutive one pin wins in games six and seven to defeat Andy Reynoso 4-3 to reach the final four.  In other round of eight matches, #5 Panaligan defeated #12 Cayson Coyle 4-2, #3 Bill Grant got by #14 Justin White 4-2, and #7 won four straight after dropping the first two games to beat #2 Kevin Saunders 4-3.

  In the final four, Panaligan finally stopped Lycan's brilliant run, 211-166.  In the other semi, New Mexicans Grant and Byer fought to a 179 tie (one of an extraordinary amount of ties on the day), and Bill won the rolloff 10-7 to advance to the title match.

 Grant has had a great beginning to the season with a win and the money lead, but Panaligan hadn't lost in his previous two starts, and nothing was to change this time, with a 204-153 win over Bill, good for his third straight win to open the season, and his 10th career JBT title.  Even better, the win pushed Nathan over the $10,000 mark in career JBT scholarship earnings.

"London Bridge is...

...falling down, falling down, falling down..."