TWO FINALS SUNDAY ON ESPN

Two GEICO PBA World Series of Bowling IX PBA Tour Finals Back-to-Back

This Sunday on ESPN Beginning at 1 p.m. ET

RENO, Nev. (Dec. 13, 2017) – The Go Bowling! PBA Tour schedule for 2017 continues with doubleheader action Sunday on ESPN beginning at 1 p.m. ET featuring the PBA Chameleon Championship presented by Reno Tahoe followed by the PBA Shark Championship presented by Xtra Frame. The finals are the first two animal pattern events of the GEICO PBA World Series of Bowling IX presented by Eldorado Resorts Reno Properties.

USBC Hall of Famer and three-time reigning PWBA Player of the Year Liz Johnson, and PBA Tour champions Wes Malott, Anthony Pepe and Tom Smallwood swept their respective best-of-three-game Round of 8 matches to advance to Sunday’s Chameleon final at the National Bowling Stadium.

The finals will use a format where the four finalists simultaneously bowl one game on the same pair of lanes with the top two scorers advancing to a head-to-head final match.

Johnson, a native of western New York who now lives in Palatine, Ill., is a PBA regional champion, who will make her third PBA Tour television appearance. Her best finish was second in the 2005 Banquet Open when she became the first woman to qualify for a PBA Tour national television final. She also owns a record 10 PWBA Tour major titles. She will be trying to join Kelly Kulick, the 2010 PBA Tournament of Champions winner, as the only women to win a PBA Tour title.

Malott, a 10-time Tour winner from Pflugerville, Texas, will be trying for his first win of the season. Pepe, of Elmhurst, N.Y., won his only PBA Tour title in the 2014 Cheetah Championship, and Smallwood, of Saginaw, Mich., will be trying for his third Tour title.

For the Shark Championship, two PBA Tour champions and two players making their first telecast appearances will face off at 2 p.m.

Four-time PBA Tour winner Marshall Kent of Yakima, Wash., and two-time winner Tom Daugherty of Riverview, Fla., both swept their best-of-three matches to advance to the finals. Kent will be trying for his third win of the 2017 season and Daugherty his first.

Charlie Brown Jr. of Grandville, Mich., a 36-year-old rookie bowling in his first PBA Tour event, swept Shota Kawazoe of Japan, 2-0 in the Round of 8, to make his first PBA Tour telecast.

Bowling in his fourth World Series of Bowling, England’s Richie Teece finally broke through to make his first Tour telecast by beating Smallwood, 2-1 in the Round of 8.

WSOB IX continues with back-to-back telecasts on ESPN of the PBA Cheetah Championship presented by PBA Bowling Challenge Mobile Game and the Pepsi PBA Scorpion Championship presented by GoBowling.com on Dec. 24 at 1 p.m. EST and the PBA World Championship Dec. 31 at 1 p.m. WSOB IX coverage concludes with World Bowling Tour Men’s and Women’s Finals presented by PBA on Jan. 7 at 1 p.m.