PBA Mega TV Weekend
09/07/09
One thing no one will be able to say about the final round of the 2009 PBA Chameleon Championship is that it was boring.
In the opening match for the Women's Series portion of the event Team USA Member Shannon Pluhowsky (pictured left) defeated an aggravated PBA Hall of Famer Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (right), 268-201, for the title.
Battling a brutal lane condition throughout the match that forced Pluhowsky to use a different ball on each lane, Dorin-Ballard did not hit right of the headpin until the 5th frame and left two 5-pins, becoming visibly frustrated in her effort to make history as the only bowler to win titles in all three Women's Series seasons.
But the drama had only just begun, as PBA Hall of Famer Amleto Monacelli (pictured left), who had not bowled in ten days and visited doctors and therapists for severe tendonitis that prohibited him from bowling the 2009 PBA World Championships, came out for his match against Bill O'Neill (right) in obvious pain, holding his bandaged arm as he sat between shots.
"Every shot I threw hurt like you have no idea," Monacelli said after a dismal defeat at the hands of O'Neill, 170-142. Monacelli still plans to bowl open events later on the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour Schedule for the 2009-2010 season, and will have plenty of time to heal between now and December when PBA Tour action resumes in Wichita for the Red, White and Blue Open presented by the United States Bowling Congress.
In another grueling match replete with open frames and battles against a difficult Chameleon shot, Sean Rash (pictured left) committed one of the most stunning mental errors in recent PBA finals memory when, after throwing his first strike in the tenth frame, he whiffed the 3-6-9-10 completely, leaving opponent Ronnie Russell (right) in need of just 8 pins to secure a victory despite starting the match with two consecutive open frames. Still, though, Russell took the hard path to victory, leaving a baby split on his first ball of the tenth and getting one pin for a narrow 172-170 win.
Scores remained low in the championship match as Bill O'Neill once again found himself in position to attain his first PBA title after coming up short on the first 8 telecast appearances of his career, including yesterday's loss to Chris Barnes in the semifinal match of the 2009 PBA Motor City Open.
Throwing just three strikes in the first 9 frames as Russell once again struggled through two open frames of his own, O'Neill needed 18 pins in the tenth to secure the title, and demonstrated why he ranks as one of the tour's hottest stars. O'Neill struck out for a 205, the only 200 game bowled by any of the men on the show.
Visibly relieved upon winning the first PBA title of his career, O'Neill joins Norm Duke, Walter Ray Williams and Rhino Page as a World Series of Bowling Champion and an exempt player for the 2010-2011 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour season.
Sunday, Sept. 6, 3:30 p.m. (airs on ESPN Sunday, Nov. 29, 1 p.m. ET)
Team USA's Shannon Pluhowsky (pictured left) made history as she won her second Professional Bowlers Association title in just one day in the Women's Series portion of the 2009 PBA Scorpion Championship, defeating Liz Johnson (right, 192-177, in a dominating performance that nearly collapsed when Pluhowsky opened both the 9th and 10th frames.
Johnson, the 2009 USBC Queens Champion, needed a double in the tenth to seal an extraordinary comeback win but fell short with an 8-count on her first ball in a losing effort.
Earlier in the day Pluhowsky defeated PBA Hall of Famer Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, 268-201, to claim the 2009 PBA Chameleon Championship title.
2007 USBC Masters Champion Sean Rash (left), on the other hand, might use a word other than "collapse" to describe his match against eventual 2009 PBA Scorpion Champion Mike DeVaney (right), closing out a dismal 162 game with four opens as DeVaney took the match with a 182.
Despite a pocket 7-10, a 2-10 split and a washout that left Rash with three consecutive open frames going into the tenth, he and Devaney were tied at 153 a piece entering the final frame. But Rash responded to DeVaney's clutch double with an 8-count that sealed his fate.
Also in the semifinals was Jason Belmonte (left), who defeated hometown favorite Tom Smallwood (right), a non-exempt player who lost his job with General Motors before trying his luck at the PBA World Series of Bowling, 222-175. Belmonte strung 6 consecutive strikes after whiffing the 4-9 split in the first frame, leaping out in front of a struggling Smallwood who hit the pocket in three of his eleven shots.
The battle against a brutal lane surface at Detroit's Thunderbowl Lanes continued, as DeVaney resorted to a urethane ball on the Scorpion pattern for half of his match against Belmonte, who himself switched balls mid-match as he moved his shot from the fourth arrow to the first. But spares are the name of the game on tough conditions and that is likely what Belmonte will keep in mind the next time he finds himself on the verge of another PBA title, as the two-handed sensation failed to convert the 3-6-9 in the 8th frame and did the same with the 3-6-9-10 in the tenth, by which time DeVaney had already secured the title.
All winners of the "animal pattern" events on the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour this season qualify to compete in the PBA Experience Showdown presented by BOWL.com, which will air in April.
Sunday, Sept. 6, 7 p.m. (airs on ESPN Sunday, Dec. 6, 1 p.m. ET)
It wasn't exactly a New York minute. It was more like 14 years, 175 days.
Lackawanna, N.Y., resident Jack Jurek (pictured left) set a PBA record for the longest time between titles when he beat Michael Fagan in an extra frame to win the PBA Shark Championship.
Jurek, who has been on tour for 24 years and last won in 1995, his only title until now. He broke Les Zikes' record of 14 years and 6 days.
After they tied at 218 after 10 frames, Jurek and Fagan went to a one-ball rolloff, Jurek, up first, threw a strike. Fagan, who hadn't missed the pocket all night, missed the head pin on his shot and got only eight pins.
"Chills went down my spine," Jurek said. "Winning again was very important to me personally to make me feel like I belong out here."
Fagan advanced to the title match, defeating Jason Couch, 224-201. Jurek defeated Wes Malott, 255-213.
In the women's final, Kelly Kulick (right), who won the World Championship on Saturday night, defeated Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, 197-182, to win the women's Shark Championship.
Clinching his first PBA Senior Tour title after 5 titles on the regular tour over his career, an emotional Harry Sullins (pictured left) continued to wipe tears from his eyes during post-match interviews after defeating Hugh Miller (right) for the Senior World Championship title, 222-192.
For Sullins, no spot on earth could have been a more appropriate setting for a major PBA Senior Tour title than Detroit, the site of the PBA World Series of Bowling.
Sullins is a member of the Detroit Bowling Hall of Fame and joins a host of other Michiganders who have seen success in the World Series of Bowling at Thunderbowl, including Saginaw's Tom Smallwood, Midland's Bo Goergen, Birch Run's Brian Waliczec and former Saginaw Valley State University stars Bill O'Neill, Anthony LaCaze and Dan MacLelland.
Saturday, Sept. 5, Noon (airs on ESPN Sunday, Oct. 25, 1 p.m. ET)
The PBA crowned a champion in the Women's Series portion of the World Championship as 2007 USBC Queens Champion Kelly Kulick (pictured left) defeated Team USA member Shannon Pluhowsky (right) in the title match 219-204, earning a $15,000 top prize and a berth in the 2010 PBA Tournament of Champions.
Pluhowsky posted a string of strikes in the second half of the match to force Kulick to get 8 pins on her first ball in the tenth frame. Kulick, the only woman ever to earn an exemption on the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour, struck to clinch the title.
Saturday, Sept. 5, 3:30 p.m. (Stepladder Final; airs on ESPN Sunday, Nov. 1, 1 p.m.)
In a telecast that arguably ranks among the most star-studded in the history of the Professional Bowlers Association and includes a combined total of 103 PBA titles, it is only fitting that the winningest player of them all would find himself in the winner's circle yet again, as Walter Ray Williams Jr. (pictured left) defeated former PBA Player of the Year Chris Barnes to claim the 2009 Motor City Open championship.
Rising star Bill O'Neill saw an opportunity to avenge a 2008-09 season in which he made seven telecasts and still found himself without a single title, defeating two legends by a combined 65 pins in matches one and two. But a costly collapse against Barnes in game 3 in which he opened four frames including a 4-6 split in a must-strike situation left O'Neill with a familiar disappointment.
O'Neill (below left) met a struggling Tommy Jones (below right) out of the gate and needed only a 201 to move on as Jones posted 3 splits and four open frames for a score of 169, but the scoring pace picked up in a hurry as O'Neill faced PBA Hall of Famer Pete Weber (below left), whose 8 strikes were ultimately foiled by consecutive splits in frames 6 and 7 as O'Neill held strong with a 257 to Weber's 224.
In a sport in which lane transition wastes no time turning one game's strike shot into the next game's struggles, though, O'Neill found himself playing catch-up in game 3, posting a 169 game of his own and falling short of Barnes's 183.
The championship round continued the show's roller coaster of intensity as the sluggish O'Neill-Barnes match gave way to an old-fashioned slug fest between two of the sport's greatest names, Walter Ray Williams Jr. and Chris Barnes.
After opening the match with six of seven possible strikes, Barnes was stunned in the foundation frame as the 6-pin wrapped around the 10 for an open frame in an attempt to convert the 3-6-9-10.
After Walter Ray failed to strike on his first ball of the tenth, though, Barnes still had an opportunity to win with a double and an 8-count in the tenth frame, but came up high on the first shot for a 9-count and fell short of his first title of the season by an 8-pin margin, 230-238.
With the win, Walter Ray Williams Jr. secures an exemption for next season along with 2009 PBA Cheetah Champion Norm Duke and raises his all-time title record to 46.
Saturday, Sept. 5, 7 p.m. (airs on ESPN Sunday, Nov. 15, 1 p.m. ET)
After a disappointing collapse in a position round match against Bill O'Neill last month that kept Rhino Page (pictured left) off the Motor City Open telecast, the former PBA Rookie of the Year silenced any questions of his ability to perform in the clutch tonight as he clinched the Viper Championship and an accompanying exemption next season on the Lumber Liquidators Professional Bowlers Tour, defeating fellow lefty Ryan Ciminelli (rightt), 268-246, in a title match in which both competitors turned back the clock by resorting to urethane equipment.
Page unleashed a barrage of strikes on young upstart Ciminelli, a non-exempt 23-year old former All-American at Erie Community College who also appeared on the 2009 PBA Cheetah Championship telecast last month when won two TQRs while finishing second in another.
After opening with a strike and a spare Page maintained a 280 pace into the second ball of the tenth frame, by which time he had already shut out Ciminelli to win the title.
Page easily held off Steve Jaros in the semifinals with a 221-180 victory while Ciminelli scraped by Michael Haugen, 238-236 with a clutch double in the tenth.
In the Women's Series portion of the 2009 PBA Viper Championship Lynda Barnes (pictured left) encountered carry problems that ultimately held her back in a title match against reigning USBC Queens Champion Liz Johnson (right), who defeated Barnes for the title by a score of 211-196.
PBA WSOB
Saturday and Sunday Results
PBA Chameleon Championship
Sunday, Sept. 6, Noon (airs on ESPN Sunday, Nov. 22, 1 p.m. ET)
One thing no one will be able to say about the final round of the 2009 PBA Chameleon Championship is that it was boring. In the opening match for the Women's Series portion of the event Team USA Member Shannon Pluhowsky (pictured left) defeated an aggravated PBA Hall of Famer Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (right), 268-201, for the title.
Battling a brutal lane condition throughout the match that forced Pluhowsky to use a different ball on each lane, Dorin-Ballard did not hit right of the headpin until the 5th frame and left two 5-pins, becoming visibly frustrated in her effort to make history as the only bowler to win titles in all three Women's Series seasons.
But the drama had only just begun, as PBA Hall of Famer Amleto Monacelli (pictured left), who had not bowled in ten days and visited doctors and therapists for severe tendonitis that prohibited him from bowling the 2009 PBA World Championships, came out for his match against Bill O'Neill (right) in obvious pain, holding his bandaged arm as he sat between shots. "Every shot I threw hurt like you have no idea," Monacelli said after a dismal defeat at the hands of O'Neill, 170-142. Monacelli still plans to bowl open events later on the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour Schedule for the 2009-2010 season, and will have plenty of time to heal between now and December when PBA Tour action resumes in Wichita for the Red, White and Blue Open presented by the United States Bowling Congress.
In another grueling match replete with open frames and battles against a difficult Chameleon shot, Sean Rash (pictured left) committed one of the most stunning mental errors in recent PBA finals memory when, after throwing his first strike in the tenth frame, he whiffed the 3-6-9-10 completely, leaving opponent Ronnie Russell (right) in need of just 8 pins to secure a victory despite starting the match with two consecutive open frames. Still, though, Russell took the hard path to victory, leaving a baby split on his first ball of the tenth and getting one pin for a narrow 172-170 win. Scores remained low in the championship match as Bill O'Neill once again found himself in position to attain his first PBA title after coming up short on the first 8 telecast appearances of his career, including yesterday's loss to Chris Barnes in the semifinal match of the 2009 PBA Motor City Open.
Throwing just three strikes in the first 9 frames as Russell once again struggled through two open frames of his own, O'Neill needed 18 pins in the tenth to secure the title, and demonstrated why he ranks as one of the tour's hottest stars. O'Neill struck out for a 205, the only 200 game bowled by any of the men on the show.
Visibly relieved upon winning the first PBA title of his career, O'Neill joins Norm Duke, Walter Ray Williams and Rhino Page as a World Series of Bowling Champion and an exempt player for the 2010-2011 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour season.
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PBA Scorpion Championship
Sunday, Sept. 6, 3:30 p.m. (airs on ESPN Sunday, Nov. 29, 1 p.m. ET)
Team USA's Shannon Pluhowsky (pictured left) made history as she won her second Professional Bowlers Association title in just one day in the Women's Series portion of the 2009 PBA Scorpion Championship, defeating Liz Johnson (right, 192-177, in a dominating performance that nearly collapsed when Pluhowsky opened both the 9th and 10th frames. Johnson, the 2009 USBC Queens Champion, needed a double in the tenth to seal an extraordinary comeback win but fell short with an 8-count on her first ball in a losing effort.
Earlier in the day Pluhowsky defeated PBA Hall of Famer Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, 268-201, to claim the 2009 PBA Chameleon Championship title.
2007 USBC Masters Champion Sean Rash (left), on the other hand, might use a word other than "collapse" to describe his match against eventual 2009 PBA Scorpion Champion Mike DeVaney (right), closing out a dismal 162 game with four opens as DeVaney took the match with a 182. Despite a pocket 7-10, a 2-10 split and a washout that left Rash with three consecutive open frames going into the tenth, he and Devaney were tied at 153 a piece entering the final frame. But Rash responded to DeVaney's clutch double with an 8-count that sealed his fate.
Also in the semifinals was Jason Belmonte (left), who defeated hometown favorite Tom Smallwood (right), a non-exempt player who lost his job with General Motors before trying his luck at the PBA World Series of Bowling, 222-175. Belmonte strung 6 consecutive strikes after whiffing the 4-9 split in the first frame, leaping out in front of a struggling Smallwood who hit the pocket in three of his eleven shots. The battle against a brutal lane surface at Detroit's Thunderbowl Lanes continued, as DeVaney resorted to a urethane ball on the Scorpion pattern for half of his match against Belmonte, who himself switched balls mid-match as he moved his shot from the fourth arrow to the first. But spares are the name of the game on tough conditions and that is likely what Belmonte will keep in mind the next time he finds himself on the verge of another PBA title, as the two-handed sensation failed to convert the 3-6-9 in the 8th frame and did the same with the 3-6-9-10 in the tenth, by which time DeVaney had already secured the title.
All winners of the "animal pattern" events on the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour this season qualify to compete in the PBA Experience Showdown presented by BOWL.com, which will air in April.
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PBA Shark Championship
Sunday, Sept. 6, 7 p.m. (airs on ESPN Sunday, Dec. 6, 1 p.m. ET)
It wasn't exactly a New York minute. It was more like 14 years, 175 days.Lackawanna, N.Y., resident Jack Jurek (pictured left) set a PBA record for the longest time between titles when he beat Michael Fagan in an extra frame to win the PBA Shark Championship.
Jurek, who has been on tour for 24 years and last won in 1995, his only title until now. He broke Les Zikes' record of 14 years and 6 days.
After they tied at 218 after 10 frames, Jurek and Fagan went to a one-ball rolloff, Jurek, up first, threw a strike. Fagan, who hadn't missed the pocket all night, missed the head pin on his shot and got only eight pins.
"Chills went down my spine," Jurek said. "Winning again was very important to me personally to make me feel like I belong out here."
Fagan advanced to the title match, defeating Jason Couch, 224-201. Jurek defeated Wes Malott, 255-213.
In the women's final, Kelly Kulick (right), who won the World Championship on Saturday night, defeated Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, 197-182, to win the women's Shark Championship.
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PBA Senior World Championship
Saturday, Sept. 5, Noon (airs on ESPN Sunday, Oct. 25, 1 p.m. ET)
Clinching his first PBA Senior Tour title after 5 titles on the regular tour over his career, an emotional Harry Sullins (pictured left) continued to wipe tears from his eyes during post-match interviews after defeating Hugh Miller (right) for the Senior World Championship title, 222-192. For Sullins, no spot on earth could have been a more appropriate setting for a major PBA Senior Tour title than Detroit, the site of the PBA World Series of Bowling.
Sullins is a member of the Detroit Bowling Hall of Fame and joins a host of other Michiganders who have seen success in the World Series of Bowling at Thunderbowl, including Saginaw's Tom Smallwood, Midland's Bo Goergen, Birch Run's Brian Waliczec and former Saginaw Valley State University stars Bill O'Neill, Anthony LaCaze and Dan MacLelland.
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PBA Women’s World Championship
Saturday, Sept. 5, Noon (airs on ESPN Sunday, Oct. 25, 1 p.m. ET)
The PBA crowned a champion in the Women's Series portion of the World Championship as 2007 USBC Queens Champion Kelly Kulick (pictured left) defeated Team USA member Shannon Pluhowsky (right) in the title match 219-204, earning a $15,000 top prize and a berth in the 2010 PBA Tournament of Champions. Pluhowsky posted a string of strikes in the second half of the match to force Kulick to get 8 pins on her first ball in the tenth frame. Kulick, the only woman ever to earn an exemption on the Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour, struck to clinch the title.
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PBA Motor City Open
Saturday, Sept. 5, 3:30 p.m. (Stepladder Final; airs on ESPN Sunday, Nov. 1, 1 p.m.)
In a telecast that arguably ranks among the most star-studded in the history of the Professional Bowlers Association and includes a combined total of 103 PBA titles, it is only fitting that the winningest player of them all would find himself in the winner's circle yet again, as Walter Ray Williams Jr. (pictured left) defeated former PBA Player of the Year Chris Barnes to claim the 2009 Motor City Open championship. Rising star Bill O'Neill saw an opportunity to avenge a 2008-09 season in which he made seven telecasts and still found himself without a single title, defeating two legends by a combined 65 pins in matches one and two. But a costly collapse against Barnes in game 3 in which he opened four frames including a 4-6 split in a must-strike situation left O'Neill with a familiar disappointment.
O'Neill (below left) met a struggling Tommy Jones (below right) out of the gate and needed only a 201 to move on as Jones posted 3 splits and four open frames for a score of 169, but the scoring pace picked up in a hurry as O'Neill faced PBA Hall of Famer Pete Weber (below left), whose 8 strikes were ultimately foiled by consecutive splits in frames 6 and 7 as O'Neill held strong with a 257 to Weber's 224. In a sport in which lane transition wastes no time turning one game's strike shot into the next game's struggles, though, O'Neill found himself playing catch-up in game 3, posting a 169 game of his own and falling short of Barnes's 183.
The championship round continued the show's roller coaster of intensity as the sluggish O'Neill-Barnes match gave way to an old-fashioned slug fest between two of the sport's greatest names, Walter Ray Williams Jr. and Chris Barnes. After opening the match with six of seven possible strikes, Barnes was stunned in the foundation frame as the 6-pin wrapped around the 10 for an open frame in an attempt to convert the 3-6-9-10.
After Walter Ray failed to strike on his first ball of the tenth, though, Barnes still had an opportunity to win with a double and an 8-count in the tenth frame, but came up high on the first shot for a 9-count and fell short of his first title of the season by an 8-pin margin, 230-238.
With the win, Walter Ray Williams Jr. secures an exemption for next season along with 2009 PBA Cheetah Champion Norm Duke and raises his all-time title record to 46.
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PBA Viper Championship
Saturday, Sept. 5, 7 p.m. (airs on ESPN Sunday, Nov. 15, 1 p.m. ET)
After a disappointing collapse in a position round match against Bill O'Neill last month that kept Rhino Page (pictured left) off the Motor City Open telecast, the former PBA Rookie of the Year silenced any questions of his ability to perform in the clutch tonight as he clinched the Viper Championship and an accompanying exemption next season on the Lumber Liquidators Professional Bowlers Tour, defeating fellow lefty Ryan Ciminelli (rightt), 268-246, in a title match in which both competitors turned back the clock by resorting to urethane equipment. Page unleashed a barrage of strikes on young upstart Ciminelli, a non-exempt 23-year old former All-American at Erie Community College who also appeared on the 2009 PBA Cheetah Championship telecast last month when won two TQRs while finishing second in another.
After opening with a strike and a spare Page maintained a 280 pace into the second ball of the tenth frame, by which time he had already shut out Ciminelli to win the title.
Page easily held off Steve Jaros in the semifinals with a 221-180 victory while Ciminelli scraped by Michael Haugen, 238-236 with a clutch double in the tenth. In the Women's Series portion of the 2009 PBA Viper Championship Lynda Barnes (pictured left) encountered carry problems that ultimately held her back in a title match against reigning USBC Queens Champion Liz Johnson (right), who defeated Barnes for the title by a score of 211-196.
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