BEST IN THE WEST XII

champions Nicholas Lee & Tyler Addotta

Best in the West XII, hosted by BRC Zone Mesa, easily lived up to its tagline of "the most unique junior tournament you'll ever bowl".  After two exciting and exhausting days of competition, Tyler Addotta and Nicholas Lee remained standing as scratch and handicap champions of this terrific event.

The format consisted of eight bowlers on each pair essentially playing a three-round bracket, with points awarded based on your finish in that bracket. After winners were determined in each bracket, bowlers re-drew lanes, and the process repeated, with bowlers accumulating points all day Saturday.  When the field was cut in half Saturday night, Kevin Saunders led the scratch field with 44 points, having won 4 of his 6 brackets.  Five bowlers tied for the final two spots at 16 points, with Addotta and Bill Grant winning the tiebreaker to advance to Sunday's double-points rounds.

In Sunday's round, Addotta went on a tear to capture the 6th and final seed for the final Superbracket.  Meanwhile, Saunders continued to bowl well, but not well enough to have an insurmountable lead headed into the triple-points Superbracket.  

In the Superbracket round, the three biggest names stunningly dropped out in round one.  Saunders managed a 181, relegating himself to no better than second in the tournament.  Grant, who also had a big Sunday, was eliminated with a 203, while Theo Douthit, who threw the event's only 300 game on Sunday morning, failed to double in the tenth, and his 204 left him eliminated, as Eric Rubin (212), Addotta (213), and Mike Cross (241) advanced.

All of the three remaining bowlers needed to win the bracket to get enough points to win the tournament, with the loser of the semifinal round finishing all the way in 5th.  Addotta advanced easily with a 248, and Mike Cross got a miracle when his 193 advanced after a missed spare by Rubin (190) in the tenth.

In the final game, Addotta, having his best performance in JBT events by far, remained in control the entire time, and defeated Cross 212-187 to capture the title and the $600 top prize.  Saunders wound up in second, while Cross dropped to third.

Over in the handicap division, Nicholas Lee put on a clinic all weekend to capture his first career JBT SW title.  He won three brackets Saturday to lead the field at 39 points, and won two more brackets Sunday to easily claim the top seed, but not by quite enough to make it a runaway going into the Superbracket.  

Greg Gloria took the long way into the Superbracket,  winning a rolloff against Chelsea Zemelka for the 6th and final spot.  However, Greg's 196 in the first round of the Superbracket meant elimination, along with Ty Prewitt (202), and 2nd-seed Alex Powell (203).  Advancing were Lee with a big 250, 10 year-old Nicholas Rumley (244), and Californian Sean Buranahiran (236).

In the Superbracket semi, the scores were sky-high again.  Poor Buranahiran rolled an excellent 230 but found himself eliminated as Rumley came up with a big 235, while Lee rolled along with a big 242.  As the points shook out, that meant that Lee, who had a 20 point lead on Rumley heading into the Superbracket, could no longer be caught, earning himself a victory lap in the final game.

In that game Lee proved again he was destined to win, with a 243-207 defeat of Rumley, who settled for an outstanding second place finish in his first JBT event.  It was sweet redemption for Lee, who had struggled most of the season, but dominated for his first career title and $500 first place scholarship.

Thanks to everyone at BRC Zone Mesa for an excellent job hosting this unique event, which awarded almost $4,000 in scholarships to the 103 bowler field.  Thanks to everyone who took a chance to bowl this strange format, a chance which we think worked out very well!