AMF TEMPE VILLAGE

champs BJ Baker & James Hawkins Jr.

BJ Baker ended a victory drought, while James Hawkins tasted victory for the first time, in exciting JBT Arizona Conference action at AMF Tempe Village.

Amy Dorsey opened up the handicap division stepladder finals with a 224 game that defeated Joshua Shoup and Robert DePrater.  In round two, Darcie Staggs rolled a 233 game to win an all-Northern-Arizona battle over Dorsey (181) and Justus Trader (213).  Hawkins then came up with a huge 260 to defeat fine efforts from Staggs (235) and Andrew Mouradian (204) to reach the title match.

Top qualifier Emmanuel Durazo had been at or near the top of the leader board all day, and the veteran found himself as the top seed for the first time in his long JBT career.  However, he had to face the red-hot Hawkins, who is the all-conference handicap point leader but had yet to break through with a win.  After a slow start, James rattled off a string of strikes that erased a deficit, resulting in a 239-207 victory and his first JBT victory.

The scratch division saw the debut of our new 'Nerve-wracker' format, where the top 16 bowlers fight it out in head-to-head matchplay.  The twist is that if their match is tied 1-1, instead of a tiebreaker game, the match goes to an immediate one shot roll-off- thus the nerves.

Top seed Greg Geering joined a long line of #1-seeds to bow out in round one of matchplay formats, as #16 Dan Bodinet pulled off the sweep.  In the round of 8, Bodinet swept again, ousting #8 Kevin Schoenfeld.  #14 Baker also swept #5 Jeff Millmier, but the other two matches went to the Nervewracker portion.  In those matches, #10 Eduardo Perez beat #5 Mike Cross in two shots, while #11 Amanda Albani toppled #4 Kris George in a three-shot thriller when she struck after a solid-7 from Kris.

In the semifinals, Bodinet stopped Albani's brilliant run 233-158, while Baker eliminated Perez 226-163, setting up an all-southpaw title match.  Dan got off to a slow start in the title match, but closed the gap considerably in the late frames before running out of time, and BJ's tenth frame strike locked up a 2-4-184 win, good for the 19th title of his phenomenal JBT career.

86 bowlers competed in the event.   Everyone who finished in the top 5 qualifies for the 2007 JBT Arizona Invitational Tournament, the regular season's year end event, featuring a guaranteed minimum $1,000 first place scholarship in each division.  Top season-long point scorers also qualify for the 2007 JBT Touring Players' Championship, featuring a guaranteed minimum $2,000 first place scholarship per division! 

Big thanks to everyone at Tempe Village for their usual terrific job hosting our events.  Over $2,100 in scholarships was awarded.  Want in on the fun?  Come on out to the next JBT event, it's as simple as that!