Rhino Page Makes Big Shots to
Win PBA Experience Showdown

Rhino Page of Dade City, Fla., made critical shots when he had needed them most to nip Bill O’Neill of Southampton, Pa., in the PBA Experience Showdown presented by BOWL.COM at the International Training and Research Center last Sunday afternoon.

Page, the Viper Champion in a field of five Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour stars and a lone United States Bowling Congress Sport Bowling league member, won an abbreviated five-frame 108-104 decision over O’Neill in a PBA Tour special event that aired on ESPN Sunday. It took clutch conversions of a 1-3-9 spare in the first frame and a 2-4-7 in the third to edge O’Neill, whose failure to convert the 1-2-4-10 “washout” proved to be his Achilles’ heel.

The Showdown was a first-of-its-kind contest featuring five PBA Experience lane condition champions (Norm Duke, Cheetah pattern; Mike DeVaney, Scorpion; Jack Jurek, Shark; O’Neill, Chameleon, and Page) along with Kevin Reuer, a USBC Sport Bowling league member from Hoffman Estates, Ill. Reuer, who bowls in the Beverly Lanes Sport League in Arlington Heights, Ill., won a national competition among thousands of USBC PBA Experience League bowlers for the right to bowl against the PBA stars.

The made-for-television event required all six players to bowl a single frame on each of the five “animal patterns” and then repeat that process to complete a 10-frame game. After one full round, the field was trimmed to the two highest scores for a five-frame championship game, also across all five patterns. In sequence, players bowled one frame each on the Shark, Chameleon, Viper, Scorpion and Cheetah patterns.

Reuer started the qualifying round with a 173. Duke followed with a 213. Page, bowling third, looked like he was in immediate trouble, leaving the 3-6-7-10 on his first shot on the Shark lane. He converted that spare, but he missed a 2-7 left-side “baby split” in the second frame on the Chameleon lane. Page then rallied to salvage a 223, putting together a string of four strikes in his second five-frame round.

O’Neill followed Page and he was untouchable. After a spare in his opening frame, O’Neill threw six consecutive strikes and then struck out in the 10th frame on the Cheetah pattern for a 258 game.

That meant Jurek or DeVaney needed to top Page’s 223 to remain in title contention. Jurek finished with a 197 and DeVaney, who started with four strikes, left a “big four” split on his second trip to the Chameleon lane to stall his bid. Needing a strike on his first shot in the 10th frame to knock out Page, DeVaney left a 6 pin and finished with a 217.

In the finale, O’Neill again jumped into the lead with a double, but the “washout” in the fourth frame proved to be the difference as Page alternated spares and strikes for his four-pin victory.

“I got pretty fortunate that Bill made a bad shot and I was able to capitalize. It was kind of a lucky draw the way the lanes were set up because I struggled the whole show with the Shark,” Page said. “If you’re going to miss, the first frame is the time to do it. Bill was so locked in…

“It was really a challenge changing angles on every lane,” he added. “I was lucky to throw that four-bagger in the first round just to give myself a chance, and even then I was able to dodge a couple of bullets from Duke and DeVaney. For both of them to miss strikes in the 10th on the Cheetah? That’s a lot of good things going my way.”

For his victory, Page collected a $25,000 first prize.

“That was great and the timing was perfect,” he grinned. “I can put a little money into my new home and also have some money to pay my taxes.”
The Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour completes its 2009-10 season with another special event, the 25th anniversary DYDO Japan Cup, April 23-25, in Tokyo. Defending champion Patrick Allen of Wesley Chapel, Fla., will lead a contingent of 20 PBA Tour stars into that event.

And the PBA’s 2009-10 schedule of telecasts on ESPN concludes next Sunday when the PBA Women’s Series Showdown presented by BOWL.COM airs at 1 p.m. Eastern. The Women’s Series Showdown will include Kelly Kulick, Liz Johnson, Shannon Pluhowsky, Stefanie Nation, defending champion Carolyn Dorin-Ballard and Michelle Feldman in a unique “Petraglia Scoring System” competition where the lower the score, the better.