The form team of the tournament justifiably won the biggest trophy at the end last Friday of the FTBJ-ICBL 30th Conference bowling tournament at Jeddah Lanes here.

Hardly missing a beat on its way to the title, Al Zamil Metal beat Jeddah Lanes in the final matchup featuring the top two seeds to emerge after a grueling eliminations in this five-man team Friday afternoon league event organized by Filipino Tenpin Bowlers of Jeddah.

Al Zamil enjoyed a twice to beat edge as the waiting No. 1 finalist. No. 2 Jeddah Lanes forced Zamil to a winner-take-all second match after winning their initial encounter by a massive 107 pins, 2,044 to 1,937.

The host bowlers gained a crack at Zamil after taking down third seed Sky Freight-TFC 1,063-990 in the fourth match of the stepladder final.

Paolo Allego and Majid Aslani led the Jeddah Lanes charge with scratch games of 254 and 257 to go with the 189 by Jeanette Cerbito, 175 by Nick Gozun and 172 by Marie Gumpal.

Randy Mata was the only player to crack 200 at 268 for Zamil, with Merlen Pamintuan on 184 and Bonie Garcia on 182. The two other players Zamil fielded for the first game against Jeddah Lanes namely Victor Pagayon and Ester Jalata fell below their averages with 166 and 138 respectively.

Jeddah Lanes could have ridden the first game momentum all the way to the crown. Instead, the match changed favor in the decisive game with Al Zamil winning 985 to 958.

The format sure benefited the No. 1 team because if this were a two games series Zamil would have had found it difficult to recover from a 107 pins deficit.

In any case, Zamil got the job done and it was the trio of Mata, Garcia and Pagayon that guaranteed victory with handicap games of 219, 202 and 195. Pamintuan added 188 and Berina 181.

For Jeddah Lanes Igna Salgado led the way with 206 that went with the 192 by Gumpal, 189 by Aslani, 186 by Cerbito and 185 by Allego.

The first stepladder match was the one-game shootout among the three survivors of the repechage with the Pin Slashers the winner on 1,016. D’ Barkads tallied 990 and Saudi Diyar Consultants had 965.

Against No. 4 Cristal Global Pin Slashers got beat 990-926. The third match had Sky Freight-TFC beating Cristal Global 94-892 to start a sequence of results that went according to form book.

Meantime, organizers announced the FTBJ Bowler of the Year competition will be held Dec. 14 with all monthly winners in each class vying for the title. They also announced the 31st conference is tentatively set to open Jan. 11 next year.

Final results:

Al Zamil Metal champion, Jeddah Lanes 1st runner-up, Sky Freight-TFC 2nd runner-up, Cristal Global 3rd runner-up, Pin Slashers 5th place, D’ Barkads 6th place, Saudi Diyar Consultants 7th place, Hidada Ltd. 8th place, Akiera Sato Bowlers 9th place, Kulisap ni Moe 10th place, Al Watan Décor 11th place, Avengers 12th place, Yanbu Sniper 13th place