The First Champion of 2021 of the PWBA Bowlers Journal Championship

ARLINGTON, Texas - In case anyone had questions about how the events of the last year affected Shannon O'Keefe and her momentum on the Professional Women's Bowling Association Tour, the two-time reigning PWBA Player of the Year offered a quick reminder that she's still the player to beat by winning the 2021 Bowlers Journal Classic, the first event of the new season.

It also was fitting that the title match Thursday night at the International Training and Research Center featured the tour's top two players - O'Keefe and top seed Danielle McEwan of Stony Point, New York - in another epic showdown.

O'Keefe, of Shiloh, Illinois, bounced back from a second-frame split and closed the title tilt with eight consecutive strikes to defeat her longtime Team USA teammate, 243-225. The win was the 14th of O'Keefe's career and earned her a $10,000 top prize. 

The Bowlers Journal Classic was the first event of the PWBA Kickoff Classic Series, which will feature three national tour stops and one regional event during its seven-day run at the ITRC, the home of Team USA.

The PWBA Tour's historic return to the spotlight was broadcast live on BowlTV.com and marked the first time since September 2019 a PWBA Tour title had been awarded. The 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19.

"This feels so amazing for multiple reasons," said O'Keefe, a 41-year-old right-hander. "It has been so long since we competed, but I was trying hard not to get wrapped up in that. I just wanted to make sure I could turn off my practice brain after all this time and get back into a competitive mindset. And, it's never about comparing one calendar year to the next. Instead, I always try to focus on the process and being appreciative of each opportunity to compete. To pick up where I left off and start this year with a win is incredible."

McEwan had the early momentum in the match, striking on three of her first four shots, but she did not strike again until the ninth frame. O'Keefe started the finale teetering between two bowling balls and some subtle moves based on how her semifinal win ended, but after leaving the 4-6-7-9-10 split in the second frame, she forced herself to commit to a game plan and was able to regain control.

O'Keefe also was the last person to claim a championship trophy, which she did at the 2019 PWBA Tour Championship for her third career major title. That victory was the final piece of a five-win season that included her second consecutive PWBA Player of the Year Award.

In both 2018 and 2019, McEwan was the runner-up in the player-of-the-year race, and she has been among the top five on the PWBA Tour's points list each year since the organization's relaunch in 2015.

During the same span, McEwan has collected five PWBA Tour titles, one in each of her five seasons, and her success includes two major victories. Her first win, also her first major, came at the 2015 PWBA Tour Championship, the last PWBA event to be held at the ITRC.

The last time McEwan and O'Keefe faced off for a PWBA title was at the 2019 BowlerX.com Orlando Open, where O'Keefe escaped with a 207-202 victory. A week later, McEwan topped O'Keefe for the singles gold medal at the 2019 World Bowling Women's Championships. 

"Bittersweet is the best way to put it," McEwan said of her second-place finish Thursday. "I was anxious and nervous going into this event because I wasn't even sure if I would remember what to do and how to be Danielle again, but things fell into place. To work through everything and have it end how it did was disappointing, but Shannon is an amazing champion and the player to beat. If I'm going to beat her, I need to be better."

To set up the championship meeting with McEwan on Thursday, O'Keefe turned in a 10-strike, 245-212 performance against their red-hot Team USA teammate Missy Parkin of Laguna Hills, California. After opening with five strikes, O'Keefe was slowed only by a 2-10 split in the sixth frame and an 8 pin in the ninth frame.

In the opening match, Parkin was able to continue the momentum that helped her into the stepladder, and she delivered a final-frame strike to sneak past fellow PWBA Tour champion Erin McCarthy of Omaha, Nebraska, 238-227.

Parkin catapulted into the top four by finishing match play with games of 258 and 238. The late surge, plus 30 bonus pins for winning each game, helped her erase a sizeable deficit that still was 72 pins heading into the position round.

Competition at the ITRC will resume Friday with the start of the PWBA ITRC Classic, which will feature qualifying rounds at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern. Nine-game pin-fall totals will determine the 12 players who advance to match play from the 36-player field.

All of the qualifying and match-play rounds at the Kickoff Classic Series are being broadcast live at BowlTV.com, free of charge to visitors who create a login for the site. Each of the four events will conclude with formal stepladder finals, which will require a BowlTV subscription to watch live.

The third event of the Kickoff Classic Series will be the PWBA Arlington Regional, taking center stage Sunday, and the excitement will conclude with the PWBA Hall of Fame Classic on Monday and Tuesday. 

The Hall of Fame Classic will feature the week's top 24 performers, based on their 18-game pin-fall totals from the Bowlers Journal Classic and ITRC Classic. Each event also will feature a different lane condition.

The prize fund for each of the three national tour stops will be $65,000, with $10,000 going to each champion.

The 2021 PWBA Tour season will feature 20 events, highlighted by the introduction of the Classic Series events and an increase in the season's overall prize fund by nearly $400,000.

Barnes and Parkin Win World Bowlers Tour Finals

Chris Barnes of Double Oak, Texas, and Missy Parkin of Lake Forest, CA, successfully concluded two years of international travel when they captured Bayer Advanced Aspirin World Bowling Tour (WBT) men’s and women’s finals titles to kick off the 2012-13 Professional Bowlers Association television season at South Point Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, NV.

Barnes, a 14-time PBA Tour champion, defeated reigning WBT men’s champion Mika Koivuniemi of Finland, 244-228, while Parkin defeated Liz Johnson of Cheektowaga, NY, 238-190, in the women’s finals during the GEICO PBA World Series of Bowling (WSOB). Both finals, which featured three players who qualified by earning points in World Tenpin Bowling Association-PBA International Tour events over a span of two years, aired Sunday on ESPN. Both champions earned $20,000.

Barnes, who won the Columbia 300 Vienna Open in Austria in October to lock up his berth in the WBT men’s finals, edged Mike Fagan of Dallas, 258-244, in the semifinal match before closing with a string of six strikes for a come-from-behind victory over his close friend, Koivuniemi, in the title match.

“Any win feels good,” Barnes said. “Mika and I always have good matches. I’ve been fortunate the last three times, but I’m pretty sure it’ll even out whether I like it or not.”

The key to Barnes’ victory was three 10 pins left by his long-time international rival on the right lane in the third, seventh and ninth frames.

“I left a couple of solid 10s on that lane myself,” Barnes said. “I knew that lane was tighter. I threw one shot that I thought was pretty good that didn’t even get back to the pocket.”

Forced to finish his game on the tricky right lane after Koivuniemi’s misfortune in the ninth frame gave him an opening, Barnes made a critical adjustment and threw three strikes in the 10th frame. The first strike was the one that iced the title.

“I knew I was going to move right and have to stay firm with the shot,” Barnes said. “Earlier on in my career I didn’t commit to that shot very well, but I committed to it, and made the shot I wanted to throw. It didn’t quite get up to high flush, but it was good enough today.”

As part of their ongoing rivalry on television, Barnes and Koivuniemi make a side bet that has involved things like the gaudy Madras plaid pair of pants Koivuniemi was forced to wear on television the last time he lost.

“We had a jersey bet on this one,” Barnes said of his WBT win. “I, or my fans, or his daughters will get to design a jersey that he’ll get to wear on a future TV show. And pretty much anything goes as long as it’s legal for TV.”

In the women’s finals, Johnson advanced to the title match after a thrilling 267-260 victory over PBA Tour titlist Kelly Kulick of Union, NJ. But Johnson’s strike shot evaporated in the title match. A 4-6-7 split in the second frame and a 4-6 in the fourth put her in a hole she couldn’t escape.

“I’ve come in second a lot lately,” said Parkin, who lost to Chicago’s Diandra Asbaty in the Australian Masters title match prior to the WSOB and finished second to Kulick in the U.S. Women’s Open earlier in the year. “Today I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I kind of went out with a mindset that I was going to make the pins strike. I know you can’t do that, but it was the mindset I had.

“I only had one game, and I needed to throw 10 really good shots, and I feel like I did. Luckily the pins fell my way and it was enough to win.”

But for Parkin, the victory made her international travels worth the effort.

“This year all of the travel has been particularly hard being away from family and friends,” she said. “It’s really hard; a lot of people don’t understand how much we travel. Winning this tournament after two years and having to accumulate all those points means so much.”

The second annual Bayer Advanced Aspirin WBT Finals presented by the PBA also signaled the start of a new points cycle for the international series. Points earned in WTBA-PBA International Tour events over the next 12 months will replace points earned in the first year of the qualifying cycle, leading into the third WBT Finals which will be part of PBA WSOB V in November 2013.

The 2012-13 PBA Tour season on ESPN continues next Sunday at 1 p.m. ET with the finals of the Alka Seltzer Plus Cold Cheetah Championship. Stepladder finalists will include Bill O’Neill, Langhorne, PA; Chris Loschetter, Avon, Ohio; Jeff Roche, Dearborn, MI, and top qualifier Mike Wolfe, New Albany, IN.

 

Pre- and post-telecast shows for all PBA-ESPN telecasts will be available on Xtra Frame, PBA’s online bowling channel.

US Women's Open Final Five Set