Dautrich Dominates While Bowersox Gaines 1st Title in Bonus Payout Tournament

The PJBT continued its 16th season with a February Bonus Payout Tournament in Chambersburg, PA.  Each year, our tour travels to Chambersburg, PA, to Lincoln Lanes, for our bonus payout tournament.  The bonus payout tournament is made possible by our sponsor and good friend Kurtis Barron.  His company, Engineered Construction Products, sponsors this event each year.  This event saw him donate $1,000, which was added to the prize fund for the event.

This day saw 56 bowlers come out for the event….despite the fact that another big snowstorm hit us the day before.  The storm cleared out in time that we were able to hold the event….we just simply started a half-hour late at 11am to allow all our bowlers and families to travel safely in the morning.  On this day, we saw 29 bowlers competing in scratch and 27 in handicap.  The event was bowled on the challenging WTBA Seoul Oil Pattern.

In the Scratch Division, Tyler Dautrich put on a dominant performance to capture his 1st ever PJBT singles title.  The scores were low on this day due to the lane pattern.  But Dautrich was the only exception!  Dautrich came right out of the gate with a 269 Game in Game 1 of qualifying.  From there, it was maintain your position.  He shot scores of 196, 205, 181, and 221.  After qualifying, Dautrich was the only bowler on the plus side of the scoreboard at +72 or 1072.  At this point, Dautrich had a 106 pin lead on the scratch field!  The 2nd place bowler, Tristan Leyen, sat at -34 or 966 for 5 games.  Dautrich maintained his lead through match play and was the tournament leader heading into the stepladder final.  In the title match, Dautrich took on 2nd seed Tristan Leyen.  This was another exciting title match.  The match came down to the 10th frame where Dautrich finished his game 1st with a score of 205.  Tristan knew that to win he needed to strike twice in the 10th frame.  On his first shot, he went wide and left a split…clinching the match for Dautrich.  Dautrich defeated Leyen in the title match 205-187.  Dautrich took home the top prize of $400.

In the Handicap Division, Lauren Bowersox captured her 1st PJBT title.  Lauren was seeded 4th after the 5 game qualifying round with a total score of -29 or 971.  She only trailed tournament leader Jocelyn Hood by 15 pins.  In match play, Bowersox won 2 of her 3 matches and was seeded 3rd entering the stepladder finals.  She only trailed tournament leader Lexi Kile and 2nd seed Caden Duff.  This meant for Bowersox to win….she would have to win 3 stepladder matches.  That is what she did!  In her first match, Bowersox defeated Cobi Kremer 201-150.  This advanced her to the semi-final match vs Caden Duff.  In a very close match, Bowersox outlasted Duff 114-103.  Lauren was now in the title match vs tournament leader Lexi Kile.  Their match was a close one but Bowersox came out on top….defeating Kile 159-139 to take home the title and the $400 top prize.

On this day, the PJBT gave out over $1900 in scholarships thanks to our sponsor.  We paid out the top 7 in each division.