Kearny Mesa Kicked Off Season 13 In Style! Thanks to everyone who came out to Kearny Mesa Bowl last weekend for the opening events of the 2008-09 JBT season! If this is going to be the level of excitement that we maintain throughout the season, we are in for one heck of a ride. Both events were filled with great accomplishments and dramatic finishes in both divisions, and over $4,000 in scholarships were awarded! Be sure to check out all the final results, and everything else going on in the wonderful world of JBT, at the best website in junior bowling, www.bowljbt.com.

The new, expanded points system is already proving to be a hugely popular addition to the JBT program – 15 minutes into the season, folks were already studying the scoreboard, obsessing over the points to be won. Awesome! As a reminder, you get points not only for your finish in each JBT event, but for being in ‘PBA Dress Code’ compliance, for leading a round of a tournament, and for having one of the 5 high games in a tournament! This means that up to 235 points are available in a standard format, regular season JBT event – so huge moves up the points standings are possible, making every single shot that much more important. Wow!!

Cliff Castle This Weekend! Coming up this weekend is our always-popular stop at Cliff Castle Casino. If you haven’t already prepaid for Saturday and/or Sunday’s events, we suggest arriving very early for your 9 AM or 1 PM qualifying squad time, so you’re not shut out- it’s only a 20 lane center. To clarify how this works for new bowlers: each day is a separate tournament from the other one- you can bowl either Saturday’s tournament, OR Sunday’s tournament, OR (hopefully) both of them. On both days, there are TWO qualifying squads (because it’s a small center), 9 AM and 1 PM. You may choose to bowl EITHER the 9 AM squad OR the 1 PM squad. The scores from both squads are COMBINED (pretend everyone is bowling at the same time) to determine the semifinalists, who will bowl right after the 1 PM squad is done. As an incentive to bowl early, 9 AM bowlers may RE-ENTER at 1 PM, but only if the 1 PM squad is not full with first-time bowlers. Re-entries will be called on a lottery basis right before the 1 PM squad begins; there is no way to pre-pay for a guaranteed re-entry. If you have any questions about all this, please don’t hesitate to contact me! Also, because our scratch bowlers want to get in as much bowling as possible, we’ll have a THIRD event at Cliff Castle on Monday, with only a scratch division. Our scratch-only events are a great chance for our higher average handicap division bowlers to ‘get their feet wet’ against the scratch-level competition, so we encourage you folks to give it a try. The Monday event will also be the first event in our brand-new “JBT Women’s Series”, featuring a separate girls’ title match for the two highest scoring females of the day. So, make it a tripleheader weekend in beautiful Northern Arizona this weekend!

See you soon!!! Our other three conferences jump into action soon as well, with NM-TX opening up next weekend at Holiday Bowl in Albuquerque. Mojave opens the following weekend at Texas Station, while Pac NW kicks off Oct. 11-12 at AMF Imperial in Seattle. Plus, the first doubles event of the season is in October, you have two Baker Team events to get teams ready for in December, the Main Event will be here before you know it, etc. etc… what we’re saying is: there’s tons of JBT action coming up, don’t miss any of it!

Keep up to date on the website, and we’ll see you at Cliff Castle this weekend!