Flint dominates the 39th annual Flint-Saginaw All-Star Bowling Matches

CLIO -- The Saginaw women's bowling all-star team kept Flint from completing a clean sweep of the 39th annual Flint-Saginaw All-Star Match Thursday night at Clio Bowling Arcade. And they had to do it in historic fashion.

Although there are no records for the greatest comeback in a series after two games, The Flint Journal's and the Flint-Saginaw All-Star historian Phil Pierson believes that Saginaw holds that mark. After the first two games, Saginaw trailed by 337 pins.

"At the end of the second game, we were recalling how one year at LeFevre's our whole team started out with five in a row," Saginaw team captain Julie Hall said. "Then Steffy (Stephanie Jones) said, 'hey, we can do that.'

"From there we just started to get on a roll and kept bowling as a team," Hall added.

The third game on Tuesday saw Saginaw shoot a 1,144 game to narrow its deficit to 96 pins.

Thursday, the Saginaw women put the hammer down as they defeated Flint, 992-943, 1098-962 and 1017-970 to win the title by 136 pins.

"We bowled great as a team," Hall said. "We balanced each other out. When someone was down a bit the others bowled well.

"Going into the last game, we just wanted to stay close. If we didn't strike, we made sure we picked up our spares."

Not even Flint's Sara Teuber's 279 game in the third game of Thursday's match could keep Flint close.

The Saginaw win ended Flint's three-match win streak but still owns a 23-16 lead over Saginaw.

Flint raised its record in the men's competition to 23-16 with its fifth straight win.

Flint led by 182 pins entering Thursday's play and kept the pressure on Saginaw.

Flint defeated Saginaw all six games and won by a whopping 624 pins.

Former Saginaw Valley State University bowler Jason Howard rolled games of 258, 249 and 245 for a 752 series. Howard was on two national championships (2005-06 and 2006-07).

"Bowling at Saginaw Valley has prepared me for all kinds of conditions," Howard said. "I still live in Saginaw but I bowl here (Flint) two times per week. My family is from this area."

In the other matches, Flint won the combined senior women and men matches The Flint women defeated Saginaw 10,452-10,415 while the Flint men won by 84 pins, 12,511-12,427.

In the senior division, Jim Mitas and Al Bilhimer led Saginaw with 683 series while Clarence "Snow" Frazier finished with a 668.

The Saginaw junior boys defeated Flint 6,329-6,185 while the Saginaw girls dropped a 5,682-5,263. Flint won the; overall junior title by 275 pins. Flint leads the junior series 17-9.

Taney Turner led the Saginaw girls with a 574 series. Cole Garstecki led the Saginaw boys with a 657 series while Brian McMahon shot 626 and A.J. Jimenez III finished with 600.

"It was strange," Jimenez said. "When we were warming up, I thought we would have a field day. The shot was right there. But it didn't take long for the shot to break down. I kept trying to move to find it and ended up leaving some splits I normally don't leave.

"But overall I was happy with the way I bowled," he said. "It was a tough shot out there."

Moving up

A trio of Saginaw all-star junior bowlers has bowled their last all-star match.

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