Pip R. Planas JEDDAH — Suhaime Leong and Malou Gime stifled their rivals with their initial salvoes on way to clinching FEDBG February titles at the Bowling City here recently. Leong, a Malaysian, started championship trek by ranking No. 5 on the cutoff then outlasted Frank Afurong, Dylan Ilagan, Eugene Delfin and Nards Hassan with his 204 in Group DE. Leong then managed to beat fellow Malaysian Haffiz in a closely fought game 177-174 to clinch the group championship. Haffiz topped qualifying round with 750 with a hi-game of 212. Advancing to the overall championship, Leong was up against class OA Scott Bronson, who out-bowled Rudy Valenzuela, Class B survivor Faisal Relativo, who beat Ruel Santoc and Class C January champion Romy Bunagan. Inspired by his three-pin escape from Haffiz, Suraime rolled on his track to score 217 and only to see his rivals Bronson with 192, Relativo with 179 and Bunagan with 177. But on the last-game transfer of lane Bunagan who was mounting a rally hobbled Leong with errors and miss shots to be under threat. Suhaime withstood the pressure to salvage the February FEDBG title at 372, including his 155 ultimate game. Bunagan who got short of a strike embraced second place with 365, while Bronson and Relativo embraced third and fourth spots with 348 and 337. The ladies' championship was as close as the men's when Gime initially scored 213 and Grace Funtilon, Ester Santoc and Eloisa Fernandez were posting scores of 173, 164 and 154, respectively. These four reached the final when Santoc and Fernandez advanced directly by topping Groups AB and CD with 773 and 752, respectively. Fernandez won via high and low over Mariz Resano. Gime bowled best over Sally Sanosa, Nurissa Ramos and Imelda Sayago. With only Funtilon and Santoc seemingly pursuing, Gime paired them with equal marks to be FEDBG Lady champion for the month of February with a final score of 375. Funtilon settled second with 335, while Santoc and Fernandez finished third and fourth.
