Thursday, September 3, 2009

Malott Moves to #1 at PBA World Championships

Reigning Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) Player of the Year Wes Malott of Pflugerville,
TX, trying to add his first
major title to his resumé, claimed the third round lead in the PBA World
Championship at Thunderbowl Lanes Wednesday.

Kelly Kulick of Union, NJ, and Ron Mohr of Eagle River, Alaska, retained their leads in the PBA
Women’s
and Senior World Championships, respectively.


Malott, a three-time Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour winner during the 2008-09 season, averaged
233.06 for a 4,195 pinfall total to advance from fourth place
into a 64-pin lead over Chris Barnes of
Double Oak, TX, who needs a PBA World
Championship title to become the sixth player in history
to complete the PBA
Triple Crown.

“I started slow, but then I moved left, got slow, managed to get the right ball in my hands and the
combination of things worked out,” Malott said. “The main
thing is to stay in the top eight. Unless I
fall on my face, that would be two
less matches I’d have to worry about.”

Barnes, who won the 2005 U.S. Open and 2006 PBA Tournament of Champions, finished with
4,131 pins.


“I have six more games to try to make the top eight and get a couple of bye rounds in match play,”
Barnes said. “The World Championship is my missing piece.
I have two seconds against guys who
shot big scores at me. I need to get back to
the title match and be the one who has the big game.
You can’t bowl average and
win this title.”

Among Wednesday’s casualties was two-time defending PBA World Champion Norm Duke of
Clermont, FL, who failed to make the cut to the top 40.


Kulick, who has won two majors herself – the 2007 USBC Queens and 2003 U.S. Women’s Open
titles – struggled but maintained a healthy lead over the women’s
field. She finished with an 18-game
total of 4,191 pins – a 232.83 average – for
a 101-pin lead over Shannon Pluhowsky of Phoenix.

“The lanes were different today. I read the condition wrong and made some dumb mistakes,” Kulick
said. “But I caught some breaks, too. The goal now is to keep
pushing, make the top four tomorrow
and worry about it from there.”


Mohr, the PBA Senior Tour’s only three-time winner in 2009, hopes to win his first major title in the
Senior Tour’s final event of the year. Mohr, who had
led all three rounds, posted an 18-game total of
4,018 pins to fend off
hard-charging Kent Wagner of Palmetto, FL, who finished with 3,953 pins.

“This whole year has been surreal,” Mohr said. “If I won a major, I don’t know how I could explain that.
My first title in Dayton was awesome, but winning last
week in Lansing against the stepladder field of
players I had to beat? That was
unreal. I was like that guy who beat Tiger Woods a couple of weeks
ago. He said,
what’s the worst that can happen? I lost to Tiger Woods? That’s the way I was thinking.

“My goal tonight was just to stay ahead of fifth place,” he added. “Getting one of those byes would
be a huge advantage.”


The top 40 men, 36 seniors and 20 women advance to a six-game cashers round Thursday morning
to determine seeding positions for best-of-seven-game,
single-elimination match play rounds
Thursday night and Friday. Thursday’s
morning round will determine the top eight men, four seniors
and four women who
will earn byes through the first two rounds of match play.

The Women’s and Senior World Championship title matches will be contested Saturday at noon
for delayed telecast on ESPN. The men’s finals will be
contested live on ESPN on Dec. 13 at Northrock
Lanes in Wichita, KS.


PBA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Thunderbowl Lanes, Allen Park, MI, Sept. 2

Third Qualifying Round (after 18 games, top 40 advance to cashers round)
1, Wes Malott, Pflugerville, Texas, 4,195
2, Chris Barnes, Double Oak, Texas, 4,131
3, Mike Scroggins, Amarillo, Texas, 4,130
4, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Ocala, Fla., 4,119
5, Tommy Jones, Simpsonville, S.C., 4,116
6, Thomas Smallwood, Saginaw, Mich., 4,107
7, Sean Rash, Wichita, Kan., 4,105
8, Mika Koivuniemi, Hartland, Mich., 4,081
9, Michael Fagan, Patchogue, N.Y., 4,056
10, Mike Wolfe, New Albany, Ind., 3,995
11, Dave D'Entremont, Middleburg Heights, Ohio, 3,981
12, Anthony LaCaze, Melrose Park, Ill., 3,976
13, Robert Lawrence, Austin, Texas, 3,975
14, Bill O'Neill, Southampton, Pa., 3,970
15, Mike DeVaney, San Diego, 3,966
16, Jason Couch, Clermont, Fla., 3,956
17, Michael Haugen Jr., Carefree, Ariz., 3,944
18, Chad Kloss, Greenfield, Wis., 3,940
19, Jeff Carter, Springfield, Ill., 3,937
20, Mitch Beasley, Puyallup, Wash., 3,930
21, Jeffrey Roche, Dearborn, Mich., 3,921
22, Lonnie Waliczek, Wichita, Kan., 3,915
23, Nathan Bohr, Wichita, Kan., 3,909
24, Eugene McCune, Munster, Ind., 3,907
25, Doug Kent, Newark, N.Y., 3,899
26, Brian Himmler, Cincinnati, 3,890
27, Brian Waliczek, Birch Run, Mich., 3,880
28, Rhino Page, Wesley Chapel, Fla., 3,877
29, Ken Simard, Greenville, S.C., 3,873
29, Jay Futrell, Derby, Kan., 3,873
31, Martin Larsen, Sweden, 3,872
32, PJ Haggerty, Clovis, Calif., 3,868
33, Dan MacLelland, Saginaw, Mich., 3,866
34, Brian Voss, Alpharetta, Ga., 3,863
35, Jason Belmonte, Australia, 3,861
36, Chris Johnson, Garland, Texas, 3,859
37, Steve Rogers, Bourbonnais, Ill., 3,854
38, Andres Gomez, Colombia, 3,852
39, Pete Weber, St. Ann, Mo., 3,849
40, Jesse Buss, Wichita, Kan., 3,844

PBA SENIOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Thunderbowl Lanes, Allen Park, MI, Sept. 2


Third Qualifying Round (after 18 games, top 36 advance to cashers round)
1, Ron Mohr, Eagle River, Alaska, 4,018
2, Kent Wagner, Palmetto, Fla., 3,953
3, Tom Baker, King, N.C., 3,900
4, Dave Patchen, Oregon, Ohio, 3,856
5, Harry Sullins, Chesterfield Twp., Mich., 3,855
6, Robert Harvey, Boise, Idaho, 3,853
7, Ted Hannahs, Zanesville, Ohio, 3,839
8, Wayne Webb, Sacramento, Calif., 3,832
9, Henry Gonzalez, Colorado Springs, Colo., 3,779
10, Hugh Miller, Mercer Island, Wash., 3,760
11, Carl Kinyon, Lockport, N.Y., 3,756
12, (tie) Mark Williams, Beaumont, Texas, and Steve Neff, Homosassa Springs, Fla., 3,754
14, (tie) Roy Buckley, Westerville, Ohio, and Dale Eagle, Frisco, Texas, 3,736
16, Dale Traber, Cedarburg, Wis., 3,728
17, Charlie Tapp, Kalamazoo, Mich., 3,718
18, Larry Franz, Redford, Mich., 3,714
19, Michael Henry, Brunswick, Ohio, 3,713
20, Kerry Painter, Henderson, Nev., 3,702
21, Michael Lucente, Warren, Mich., 3,700
22, Rick Vittone, Canada, 3,695
23, Bobby Johnson, Chillicothe, Ohio, 3,692
24, Kevin Croucher, Grants Pass, Ore., 3,689
25, Jeff Schrum, Cherryville, N.C., 3,673
26, John Bennett, Clarkston, Mich., 3,668
27, Dale Csuhta, Wadsworth, Ohio, 3,655
28, Brian Brazeau, Ocala, Fla., 3,647
29, Ted Staikoff, Black Hawk, S.D., 3,641
30, William Peters, Dayton, Ohio, 3,634
31, Dave Soutar, Bradenton, Fla., 3,604
32, Rick Minier, Houston, 3,601
33, Dick Selgo, Archbold, Ohio, 3,593
34, Randy Rau, Belleville, Ill., 3,591
35, Dave Bernhardt, Shelby Twp., Mich., 3,588
36, x-Bob Knipple, Long Beach, Calif., 3,586
x-won a one-game roll-off over Bob Chamberlain, Auburn Hills, Mich., for 36th
place, 228-184

PBA WOMEN’S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Thunderbowl Lanes, Allen Park, MI, Sept. 2

Third Qualifying Round (after 18 games, top 20 advance to cashers round)
1, Kelly Kulick, Union, N.J., 4,191
2, Shannon Pluhowsky, Phoenix, 4,090
3, Michelle Feldman, Auburn, N.Y., 3,971
4, Joy Esterson, Annapolis, Md., 3,913
5, Missy Bellinder, Fullerton, Calif., 3,889
6, Wendy Macpherson, Henderson, Nev., 3,883
7, Cheryl Daniels, West Bloomfield, Mich., 3,876
8, Diandra Asbaty, Chicago, 3,863
9, Liz Johnson, Cheektowaga, N.Y., 3,846
10, Shalin Zulkifli, Malaysia, 3,835
11, Tammy Boomershine, North Ogden, Utah, 3,828
12, Shannon O'Keefe, Arlington, Texas, 3,811
13, Robin Orlikowski, Grand Rapids, Mich., 3,803
14, Jodi Woessner, Oregon, Ohio, 3,797
15, Adrienne Miller, Albuquerque, N.M., 3,779
16, Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, Keller, Texas, 3,774
17, Lindsay Baker, Waterford, Mich., 3,729
18, Paola Gomez, Colombia, 3,726
19, Elysia Current, Ephrata, Pa., 3,724
20, Amanda Fagan, Patchogue, N.Y., 3,717

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