PBA Spare Shots
With a pair of PBA Hall of Famers guiding them, the USA vs. The World team match will return to the 10th anniversary PBA World Series of Bowling as the fifth consecutive night of WSOB coverage on FOX Sports’ FS1 channel. The team match will air on Friday, March 22 at 8 p.m. EST from the historic Thunderbowl Lanes arena in Allen Park, Mich.
Back to manage the two-time defending champion USA team will be PBA Hall of Famer Marshall Holman. Under Holman’s guidance, the USA won the two most recent matches in 2016 and 2017. The World will be managed for the first time by fellow PBA Hall of Famer and Venezuela native Amleto Monacelli who bowled as a member of the international team when it won the first two matches in 2010 and 2013.
Players from the United States and the international contingent will qualify for their respective teams based on 30-game qualifying pinfall totals for the Cheetah, Chameleon and Scorpion Championships held earlier in the WSOB. The best-of-three-game Baker format team match will conclude FOX Sports’ WSOB coverage that will begin with live telecasts of the Cheetah Championship on Monday, March 18; Chameleon Championship on Tuesday, March 19; Scorpion Championship on Wednesday, March 20, and PBA World Championship on Thursday, March 21. All five shows will air at 8 p.m. Eastern.
ANTHONY SIMONSEN ADVANCES TO FOURTH PLACE IN PBA PLAYOFFS POINTS RACE
Thanks to his victory in the PBA Players Championship Sunday, Anthony Simonsen moved into fourth place in the race to qualify for the inaugural PBA Playoffs.
Finishing second in the second Tier 1 event on the 2019 Go Bowling! PBA Tour schedule helped Jason Belmonte expand his lead in the 2019 PBA Playoffs points lead to 15,550 points while EJ Tackett, moved into second place on the basis of his second straight top five finish in the PBA’s first two major championships of the year.
Under the new PBA competition points structure in play this season, a win in a Tier 1 (major championship) event is worth 7,500 points – triple the value of the base points total for a victory (2,500 points) in a Tier 3 (limited entry and/or modified format) tournament. Tier 2 (standard PBA Tour) events award double the Tier 3 points.
Sean Rash dropped one spot to third, Jakob Butturff fell from third to fifth, and Kyle Troup advanced to sixth. Rounding out the top eight heading into the Go Bowling! PBA Indianapolis Open (a Tier 2 event) were Dick Allen in seventh place and Bill O’Neill in eighth. Marshall Kent and Jesper Svensson dropped out of the top eight to ninth and 10th, respectively.
The race for the 24th-and-final berth in the PBA Playoffs currently involves Kyle Sherman in 24th with Darren Tang, Patrick Girard and Zacharay Wilkins in hot pursuit.
Finishing in the top eight as of the end of the USBC Masters on April 1 means those players will earn a first-round bye in the single-elimination PBA Playoffs. Finishing in the top 24 is a necessity to qualify for a place in the Playoffs; finishing in the top 40 is required for eligibility to enter the 2019 PBA League Draft. To follow the points competition as the season progresses, use this link: https://www.pba.com/SeasonStats/PointsList/132?list=1.
The PBA Playoffs begin on Monday, April 8, with live coverage of the opening Round of 24 matches on FS1 at 7 p.m. Eastern from Bayside Bowl in Portland, Maine.
Craig Auerbach of Sunrise, Florida, defeated Troy McKinney of Yorktown, Va., 214-197, to win the PBA50 Dave Edwards Toyota Spartanburg South Open presented by Global 900 at Paradise Lanes in Spartanburg, S.C., Sunday.
Auerbach won $2,000 and his first PBA Regional title. He won a PBA Regional in Brunswick, Ga., in 2008, but didn’t get credit for a title because he was a non-PBA member at the time.
The championship match was close in the first half of the game, but after McKinney left a 6-7-10 split in the seventh frame and failed to convert, Auerbach stayed clean and doubled in the ninth and 10th frames to lock it up.
In the semifinal round, Auerbach def. Mac Sanders of Taylors, S.C., 246-194, while McKinney disposed of Hall of Famer Walter Ray Williams Jr. of Oxford, Fla., 241-208.
• The PBA Central and Midwest Regions will participate in the joint PBA50 Plaza Lanes Central/Midwest Open in Crawfordsville, Ind., over the Feb. 22-24 weekend. Over the same weekend, South Point Bowling Plaza in Las Vegas will host a doubleheader including the South Point West Challenge on Friday, and the South Point Member/Non-Member Doubles, both presented by Radical.
● For complete PBA Regional schedules, rules and entry information, visit pba.com, open the “schedules” tab and click on PBA Regional Tours to find the event(s) in your area…and remember, you can follow “live scoring” for all PBA Regional events on pba.com (easily accessible for Apple and Android device users using the PBA app).
QUICK NOTES:
• PBA and FOX Sports reporter Kimberly Pressler will appear on FOX59’s Morning News show in Indianapolis Saturday at 8:20 a.m. to help promote Sunday’s Go Bowling! PBA Indianapolis Open telecast live on FS1 Sunday at 3 p.m. EST.
• How a player ranks in the 2019 Go Bowling! PBA Tour competition points race won’t necessary determine who wins Rookie of the Year honors, but it’s an important part of the 2019 Bowl4life PBA Rookie Watch because the 2019 PBA Rookie of the Year will earn a $2,500 bonus from Chuck Gardner’s Bowl4Life Foundation and the foundation will donate an additional $2,500 to a youth bowler scholarship in the Rookie of the Year’s name. After the PBA Players Championship, the three top rookies on the PBA Playoffs points list are Jake Rollins of Glen Rock, N.J.; AJ Rice of Salem, Ala., and Patrick Hanrahan of Wichita, Kan.
• The unofficial FloBowling PBA Power Rankings top 10 following the PBA Players Championship include: Jason Belmonte (retaining his No. 1 ranking from the previous week); 2, EJ Tackett (2); 3, Sean Rash (5); 4, Jakob Butturff (3); 5, Dom Barrett (4); 6, Jesper Svensson (8); 7, Kyle Troup (12); 8, Kris Prather (7); 9, Rhino Page (6) and 10, Anthony Simonsen (unranked). Visit FloBowling.com for a complete list along with Flo’s rationale for its rankings.
• Australia’s Jason Belmonte and 10-time PBA Tour titlist Bill O’Neill of Langhorne, Pa., will make an appearance on March 9 at the Detroit Athletic Club to help promote the 10th anniversary PBA World Series of Bowling which will take place March 11-21 at Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, Mich.
• World Bowling announced Friday that it has learned the Paris 2024 Olympic Organizing Committee has rejected bowling’s bid to become one of the new sports to be included in the 2024 Games. Paris 2024 has named breakdancing, climbing, surfing and skateboarding as the additional sports it will ask the IOC Executive Committee to include in the 2024 Olympic Games.
• BJI Cyber Report has reported that Reg Pearson, one of the “architects” of the National Bowling Stadium and the facility’s manager from its opening in 1995 until 1998, died on Jan. 28. He was 82.
• Two-time PBA Tour titlist Mike Machuga of Erie, Pa., has been named as the first women’s bowling coach at Mercyhurst University in his hometown. Mercyhurst will launch its women’s collegiate bowling program in the 2019-20 season.
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