Alex Sorge & Jonathan Pollison Capture Day After Xmas 2017 Major Tournament Titles

The PJBT continued his 19th season with one of our biggest Events of the Year!  It was our 2017 Edition of the PJBT Day After Xmas Tournament at Rose Bowl in Allentown, PA.  This event is a traditional event to kick off the college bowling week in our area.  Our event was always on the 26th of December before the college events Dec 27-30.  With the day being before the college event, many former PJBT bowlers…now in college….returned.  We also saw many active college bowlers bowl their first PJBT and join our regulars for a major big event.

This year’s event saw 128 bowlers take to the lanes.  The handicap division event is first, in which we had 34 bowlers competing.  After the handicap event, came the main event….Scratch.  This year we had 94 scratch bowlers competing!  The format for the 5th major was 6 games, 3 games of match play, and the top 4 advance to bracket final.  Payouts were based on entries.  The lane pattern was a tough Kegel Created Pattern from Doug Dukes at Kegel.  Pattern ratio was close to 1:1.

In Handicap, Jonathan Pollison captured the coveted major title.  Pollison entered the event with a 161 entering average and 35 pins handicap.  Pollison shot scratch games of 160, 140, 157, 188, 155, and 137.  Pollison was at -53 for 6 games and was seeded 10th out of 14 advancing to match play.  The first round cut to advance (14th) was -81.  Pollison made his move in match play going 3-0 with scratch games of 175, 191, and 183.  Pollison was seeded 3rd entering the 4 bowler bracket final.  In the first semi-final, Pollison took on #2 seed Giulietta Colon.  Pollison won this match 180-148.  In the other semi-final, #1 seed Allison Stackewicz defeated #4 seed Eric Berg 135-119.  This set up the title match.  Stackewicz vs Pollison.  In a close exciting match, Pollison squeaked out a victory over Stackewicz 182-169.  Jonathan Pollison won a $300 scholarship for his major win with a glass bowling trophy.

Then came the Scratch Event!  Alex Sorge of Mommoth Junction, NJ, won the prestigious scratch major event.  Sorge started the event with an up-and-down qualifying round.  Sorge had one big game of 274 during game 5.  His other games were 191, 178, 247, 199, and 152.  Sorge qualified 10th out of 38 bowlers to make match play.  The first cut for 38th place was -90.  Sorge made his move in match play…..going 3-0 with games of 233, 193, and 213.  His wins propelled him into 4th place and was the final bowler of 4 to make the bracket final.  For Sorge to win, he had to beat the #1 and #2 seed bowlers.  That is what he did!  In the semi-final, Sorge defeated #1 seed Amando Jay Villa 199-165.  This advanced Sorge to the title match vs #2 seed Kenny Ryan.  In an exciting final match, Sorge beat Ryan 233-212 to bring home the title.  Alex Sorge won a $300 scholarship and glass bowling pin for the major win.

In all, we paid out scholarships to the top 16 scratch bowlers and 7 handicap bowlers….and top 2 women.   In all, we paid out over $3000 in scholarships in prizes and sidepots.  Congrats also to Hunter Machin.  Hunter bowled our only honor score of the tournament….a 299 game 11-in-a-row during match play.

Our next PJBT event – the Annual New Years Eve Day Tournament at Strike Zone Alleys on Sunday, December 31 at 10:30am.