Thursday, April 8, 2010

PBA Experience on ESPN Sunday

The 2009-10 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour’s regular season is over, but
competition continues Sunday on ESPN with the first of two special events from the new International Training and Research Center located on the
International Bowling Campus. 


Eleven of the sport’s top players and six United States Bowling Congress
league bowlers will compete in the PBA Experience Showdown and the PBA
Women’s Series Showdown
, both presented by BOWL.COM, which will air on
ESPN on Sundays April 11 and April 18 at 1 p.m. Eastern, respectively. 


The made-for-TV events will begin with the PBA Experience Showdown on
Sunday. The PBA Experience Showdown is a unique competition, tying together USBC’s grassroots PBA Experience league program with the five PBA Tour champions who won the five PBA Experience “animal pattern” lane condition championships during the World Series of Bowling in Detroit, kicking off the 2009-10 Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour season. 


The five champions are Norm Duke (Cheetah), Rhino Page (Viper), Bill O’Neill
(Chameleon), Mike DeVaney (Scorpion) and Jack Jurek (Shark). 


The PBA stars were joined in Arlington by six USBC PBA Experience league 
bowlers – one each representing the five “animal patterns” and a sixth 
representing any other Sport Bowling lane condition. The six USBC Sport 
Bowling members who earned trips to Arlington through a national online voting
process, along with their respective league secretaries and the proprietor/manager of the center 
that hosted the league, were: Bill Motovina, Clearwater, FL; Joe Petrowski, 
East Syracuse, NY; Kevin Reuer, Hoffman Estates, IL; Pattie Riddle, Palatine, IL; 
Brent Watson, Parkersburg, WV, and Bobby Wenger, Wooster, OH. In a 
preliminary event, the six players bowled one game on each of six different 
PBA Experience lane conditions, and Reuer won the qualifier, advancing 
to the television final where he will bowl with the five PBA stars.

Sunday’s unique Showdown format will involve all six bowlers bowling one frame 
on each of five lanes, each featuring a different PBA Experience pattern. In 
order, the frames will be Shark, Chameleon, Viper, Scorpion and Cheetah. After 
five frames, the group will be re-ordered, from lowest score to highest, and 
they’ll bowl another five frames. After one full game, the top two players will 
advance to a five-frame title match following the same order. The fifth frame 
will act as a 10th frame.

On April 18, Kelly Kulick, who became the first woman to win a regular PBA Tour 
event by capturing the 2010 Tournament of Champions, will join Carolyn 
Dorin-Ballard, Stefanie Nation, Shannon Pluhowsky, Liz Johnson, and Michelle 
Feldman in the PBA Women’s Series Showdown presented by BOWL.COM.

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