A Rash-Belmonte re-match has been anticipated since their emotional
“bottlegate” confrontation during the GEICO PBA Team Shootout in June in
Chicago. During a Team Shootout match, Rash angrily responded to Belmonte after
he apparently made a noise with his plastic water bottle while Rash was on the
approach, preparing to make a key shot.
Belmonte later dismissed the incident as
an accident, but neither player was apologetic, and both promised to resolve any
differences on the lanes when they meet again.
That meeting will occur as the first match of the men’s finals of
the World Bowling Tour (WBT) presented by the PBA, which will air at 1 p.m. ET on Dec.
4 on ESPN. Rash qualified second in the season-long WBT points standings behind
points leader, Finland's Mika Koivuniemi, now living in
Hartland, MI, while Belmonte finished third on the points list.
Hong Kong’s Wu Siu Hong (coached by former PBA touring player Purvis
Granger) won the Australian Masters men’s title and a $25,000 first prize with a
226-207, 259-243 victory over Mike
Fagan of Patchogue, NY. Koivuniemi finished third, Rash fourth, Canadian Dan MacLelland now living in Saginaw, MI, was
fifth, and Belmonte eighth.
Two-time PBA Women’s Series
title winner Shannon Pluhowsky of
Kettering, Ohio, won the Australian Masters women’s title, defeating Sweden’s Sandra Andersson, 236-181, 210-181, but
the second-place finish was enough for Andersson to knock PBA Tour titlist Kelly Kulick out of the WBT women’s
finals. Kulick and WBT women’s points leader Carolyn Dorin-Ballard did not bowl in
Australia.
Dorin-Ballard won the WBT
women’s points title followed by Sweden’s Nina Flack and Andersson. The WBT
Women’s Finals presented by the PBA stepladder finals will follow the men’s
telecast on ESPN on Dec. 4.
Both World Bowling Tour
stepladder finals will be conducted on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 5:30 p.m. PT at
South Point in Las Vegas.
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