Ryan Graham & Wren Williamson Win Coveted 2017 Invitational Title – Lazarchick is 2017 PJBT Bowler of the Year

The PJBT celebrated the end of our 18th Season with a trip to Limerick Bowl for our most famous events and weekend of the Year!  It was our Championship Weekend with the Pro Bowlers from the PBA Tour!  This year Parker Bohn III, Doug Kent, Danny Wiseman, Marianne Dirupo, and Patrick Allen joined us for a weekend of fun and excitement for our youth.  They assisted us in our multiple events weekend that gave out thousands of dollars in Scholarships and Prizes.  Weekend began with the Friday Night Bowl with the Pros Rolloff at 8pm.  We conducted our Annual No-Tap Bowl with the Pros Event at 9am Saturday.  The remainder of the day Saturday was our Adult-Jr Event  and Skins Match vs Parker Bohn.  Sunday was our Championship Invitational Tournament and Awards Ceremony.

For the recap here, I will go backwards….being our biggest event of the year was Sunday.  Sunday’s Invitational began with our annual Awards Ceremony.  We gave out all our high season awards….including Player of the Year, which went to Andrew Lazarchick.  We also crowned our Sportmanship Awards Winners this year….both of which are now 2-Time Winners of this award…..Alex Glinski & David Swavely.  We also announced the creation of the new PJBT MAPS Scholarship Portal.  We are very excited to have an easy efficient way for bowlers to verify scholarship funds and claim those funds when time for college.  The MAPS program will be creating new scholarship opportunities for our youth.

The tournament was as exciting as an invitational championship can be.  We had 121 bowlers competing with 63 in Scratch and 58 in Handicap.  The format for this year’s invitational was 6 games, top 40% bowl 3 additional games of match play……top 10 advance to bracket final.  Event was conducted on a new lane pattern created by our friend Jeff Smith called Jeff Smith #1.  In Scratch, Ryan Graham captured his 1st Major PJBT Title in dramatic fashion.  His day began going +34 for 6 games (1234) in qualifying.  He was in 10th place entering match play.  The first round cut for Scratch (26th place) was -55.  Graham bowled some solid games during match play and won his matches.  He came up the leaderboard to 3rd place entering the 10 person final.  Being 3rd, this made his road to victory harder.  Seeds 1&2 got a bye thru the first 2 rounds of the bracket.  So #1 seed Michael Martell and #2 seed Anthony Neuer were automatically in the final 4.  Graham began with a match #10 seed Joe Starace.  Graham won this match 215-184.  His 2nd bracket match was against #6 seed Ryan Goddard.  In a classic battle match, Graham squeaked by….winning 168-167.  Graham then advanced to the semi-finals and took on #2 Anthony Neuer.  In another close match, Graham won 183-175.  This advanced Graham to the title match vs #1 seed Michael Martell.  Martell was 1 win away from becoming the first PJBT bowler in History to win 3 Consecutive Invitational Titles.  He had won in 2015 and 2016.  This match was EPIC.  Graham started the match with the lead but Martell battled back in the middle frames to take the lead.  The match, like many others, came down to the final frame.  Graham needed to strike out to put serious pressure on Martell.  Graham did not strike out and shot 198.  This meant that all Martell needed was a mark in the 10th frame for his 3rd consecutive invitational title.  His first shot he got 9 leaving the 7 pin.  Needed to convert the 7 pin to win.  In bowling, we say a match is never over until all the frames are bowled.  To the surprise of all the fans….Martell, MISSED HIS 7 PIN SPARE.  Wit the miss, Graham won the title sitting on the bench 198-191.  Graham took home the famous cup trophy and a $750 scholarship.  Final finishing order was 2nd Martell 3rd Runk 4th Neuer 5th Goddard 6th Kolessides 7th Kennedy 8th Ben Rynes 9th Starace and 10th Alex Glinski.

In Handicap, Wren Williamson captured her handicap-leading 4th title of the year and the biggest one of the four!  Williamson, like Graham, also had a long road to victory.  She did lead the handicap field after qualifying.  She entered event with 125 average and 67 pins handicap.  She shot 823 for 6 games and with handicap had 1225 (+25).  She lead the field entering match play.  The first round cut (24th place) was -99.  In Match Play, she lost ground.  She lost multiple matches and fell back in the standings to 7th place.  Similar to Graham, she made the finals but had a long road to victory.  She began with a match vs #6 seed Stephen Yuhas V.  She won that match 212-176.  Williamson’s 2nd match was against #3 seed Allison Stackewicz.  This was a close match to the end….but Williamson won 234-208.  Williamson then moved onto the final 4 vs #2 seed Logan Chappell.  This match was a blowout.  Williamson got out to an early lead and never looked back….winning 227-158.  This advanced to the title match….vs #1 seed Steven Skillman.  To win, Williamson had the longest road and had to beat the #3, #2, and #1 seeds.  Well she completed the task in the final match!  Williamson defeated Skillman 218-174 to win the famous cup trophy and a $750 scholarship.  Finishing order for Handicap was 2nd Skillman 3rd Smee 4th Chappell 5th Carnal 6th Stackewicz 7th Jaquith 8th Kelsey Creager 9th Stephen Yuhas V 10th Elle Soluri.

All in all, we gave out over $5000 in this event alone and was a great invitational event.

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On Saturday, the PJBT conducted its Adult Junior and Skins Match.  The tournament consisted of 2 squads of 4 games of bowling for our Adult Junior Teams.  Top teams earned payouts in the prize list as results were final after game 4.  Both squad scores were integrated together to make up the final results.  Top teams in each division advanced to take on Parker Bohn III head to head for a winner take all bonus prize.  Scholarship for youth and cash for adult.  This year’s adult junior had 114 teams compete including 65 Scratch Teams and 49 Handicap Teams.

Our overall Scratch Champions in the Prize List was Ben Rynes & Danny Wiseman….who shot 2001 (+401) for 4 games. Rynes/Wiseman won $500 scholarship/$250 cash prize.  Their team games were 566, 555, 470, and 410.  We paid out the top 11 teams in Scratch.  Finishing 2nd was Brandon & Parker Bohn, 3rd Bryan Bilanin/John Longacre 4th Isaac Erickson/Darren Zombro Jr and 5th Alex Glinski/Lee Sandt.

Our overall Handicap Champions in the Prize List was Allison & James Stackewicz.  They shot 1863 for 4 games with team games of 371, 386, 339, and 387.  Allison won $500 scholarship and dad a $150 cash payout.  We paid out the top 8 teams in Handicap.  Finishing 2nd was Sydney Bohn/Parker Bohn 3rd Jennifer & Dad Williams 4th Logan & Mike Chappell 5th Stephen & Robert Yuhas.

In the final skins winner-take-all, Brian Kennedy of Philadelphia won the youth scholarship of $640.  Kennedy qualified for the finals by finishing 6th in the tournament and outlasted the other youth for the victory.  On the adult side, it was a battle between John Longacre and Danny Wiseman.  In the end, Wiseman outlasted him in overtime bowling and won the $630 bonus.

This event saw the PJBT give out over $5000 in scholarships and prizes.  Another great end of season event.

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Saturday Morning was our Annual No-Tap Pro-Am Bowl with the Pros.  Our pro bowlers competed with other local and regional pros in a fun 3 game event.  All bowlers are in one division of handicap.  The only separation of divisions was youth and adult.  This year’s event had 73 entries including 51 Youth and 22 Adults.

The youth title was won by Daniel Althouse who shot 878 for 3 games.  He shot 300, 278, and 300 for the victory and a $200 scholarship.  Other scholarship winners included Paige Boyd $100, Corey Rinda $75, RJ Carbone $65, Jacob Ricketts $50, Josh Davy $50, Sydney Bohn $40, Anthony Mastroianni $40, Brandon Updike $40, and DJ Brown $40.

The adult title was won by James Ricketts who shot 890 for 3 games.  He shot 290, 300, and 300 for the victory and a $100 cash prize.  Other cashers included Mike Petch $70, James Stackewicz $50, Jay Fitts $40, and Michael Van Blaricum $40.

**Overall the weekend was a big success….we thank all our sponsors and bowlers for competing in our championship weekend….in which we gave away close to $15,000 in prizes! **