The 12th Annual Alro Steel / Michigan Junior Masters Association Adult – Junior Doubles Tournament was held again at Royal Scot Lanes in Lansing, Michigan on January 6th and 7th. History has seen this event as the highest scoring tournament we have in the year and once again this season it upheld tradition. However, instead of a standard “house” oil pattern, bowlers were treated to a Generations Tour oil pattern which brought the overall scoring down about 20 pins over previous seasons.

The competition was still very much evident amongst the 93 teams there to vie for this years title and a share of the over $5,000.00 in scholarships to awarded to the youth bowlers. Past champions such as Jenny Reyes (Saginaw, MI), Dan Frank (Bay City, MI) and two-time defending champions Jesse Hojnacki (Port Huron, MI) and Ed Karwinski (Port Huron, MI) were all there along with a host of new athletes looking to gain a large banner for themselves.

After a 6 game qualifying block on Saturday the top 24 male and 6 female teams came back on Sunday morning to bowl head-to-head match play to see who was going to make it to the Baker stepladder finals. In some very spirited competition it went down to the final position round game in both divisions to settle the final positions.

On the ladies side, the sister team of Christine and Jennifer Bator (Warren, MI), who won a title together in 2004, were leading right from the start, thanks in large part to younger sis Christine’s great bowling during qualifying. Christine lead all bowlers, youth and adult, with a 1474 tally for her 6 game qualifying block which was 5 pins better than Jason Rasinske (Lansing, MI) who was bowling with his younger brother Zach. However, on the last position round match game the Bator sisters slipped to second place and Jennifer Churchill (Windsor, Ont.) and Petesy Wray (Windsor, Ont.) took the top qualifying spot going into match play.

In the first match play set, which was now a Baker style format where bowlers alternate frames during the game, the team of Valerie Klaas (North Street, MI) and Robin Orlikowski (Grand Rapids, MI) defeated the third place team of Samantha Johnson (Grand Rapids, MI) and Shari Nyenhuis(Grand Rapids, MI) by a score of 202-194 to advance to the semi-finals against the Bator sisters. Bator and Bator took control early as Klaas and Orlikowski ran into some split problems and they posted a 202-151 win to advance into the finals. In the finals, the Bator sisters showed again why they led the tournament almost all the way as the continued their strong teamwork and posted a 217-164 win over Churchill and Wray to take home their second team title together. Their win is only the second time in our Adult – Junior tournament history that the same team has won more than one title and the first for the ladies side.

The other two-time winning team was on the boys side where Hojnacki and Karwinski were trying to become the first team to win three titles as the same team. They had worked their way into position to qualify for the stepladder finals but a hamstring problem with Karwinski derailed their attempt to make it a three-peat as they finished 6th and one position out of the stepladder finals. Bay City and Saginaw were well represented in the finals as six of the ten bowlers in the finals were from either city. The other two teams represented west Michigan as they all hailed from the Kalamazoo area.

Nathan Block and Bill Blanchard, both from Bay City, were first to test the baker format against Tyler Green (Richland, MI) and his partner Jack Logan Jr. (Kalamazoo, MI). The match was back and forth early but Block carried a couple of suspect strikes, all in the game, to help his team move to a 233-180 win. Next up was the brother combination of Brandon and Jason Gibson (Kalamazoo, MI) who were bowling very well especially late in the day when other teams seemed to be struggling. But Block and Blanchard held on as Block threw a much needed strike on his first ball in the tenth frame to win the match 212-203. This win set up a semi-final match against Bay City rivals Kevin Kowalski and Scott Weston.

In what can only be called a “the lanes must have broke down very quickly” semi-final, the team of Kowalski and Weston advanced to the finals in a very tough scoring 172-162 match. This set up the finals against the Saginaw team of Brian Mc Mahon and Steve Novak. Now this oil pattern had been very tough on many of our bowlers but Novak and Weston seemed to have the condition solved during the tournament as they lead all bowlers with 237 and 234 averages respectively for their 14 games of qualifying. However, in the step ladder finals, it may have been the pressure of the banner or it could have been the back strain from carrying their partners all weekend, but both Novak and Weston struggled to find anything and the winning decision was place on the junior bowlers McMahon and Kowalski.

McMahon threw a strike on his first ball in the tenth to make the game very tight and they proceeded to carry nine on his next two balls which meant the Kowalski needed a mark and a good count to take the victory. Kowalski let it fly and unfortunately a 6-7-10 split materialized of which he made only two pins to give the victory to McMahon and Novak. This was McMahon’s very first MJMA title and he also took home a $450.00 scholarship for finishing first.

All the youth bowlers who made it to match play on Sunday received scholarship money as we once again topped the $5,000.00 amount given away over a weekend. We thank the parents and guests for their generosity during the 50-50 raffles and bowling ball raffles as that added over $600.00 to the scholarship fund for the event this year. I also want to thank Bill Orlikowski and the folks at Brunswick for donating the bowling ball for this event.

Our next event is the annual BOB KLACZKIEWICZ MEMORIAL JUNIOR DOUBLES to be held at Candlelite Bowl in Bridgeport, Michigan, which is near Frankenmuth. Bob Klein and the folks at Candlelite always put out a difficult condition for our junior teams and this year should be no different. The field is limited to the first 48 teams and we already have 25 pre-registered for the event so don’t miss out and get your entries in early because we will only have room for 48 teams and we will not extend beyond that number.

The Board of Directors of the Alro Steel / Michigan Junior Masters Association hopes that everyone has had a nice holiday season and that this year brings good things to all our members and their families. We are looking forward to continuing the tradition established by Dan Ottman throughout this year and into the future. We look forward to seeing everyone in Bridgeport on January 27th and 28th, 2007.