Belmonte Shoots 300 while advancing to PBA World Championship Finals
Jason Belmonte fired the 21st nationally televised 300 game during the PBA World Championship semifinal rounds. The 300 game earned Belmo a $10,000 bonus and helped him advance to the finals of this event. Belmonte defeated Brian Kretzer, Mike Fagan, and Josh Blanchard to advance out of the Mike Aulby division of the PBA World Championship.
Unfortunately, Belmonte’s 300 wasn’t the biggest “news” to come from the show this week. ESPN chose to magnify Josh Blanchard’s “incident” during the first match. Blanchard had his ball stick on his thumb as he approached the foul line. Because of this, it carried him across, where he slipped on the lane. Throughout the day, ESPN has revisited this event several times, on shows such as Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, and even SportsCenter. Am I alone where I think that this is ridiculous of ESPN? You have a guy do something that requires and extreme amount of talent, something that’s only been done 20 other times, meanwhile you focus on the poor aspects of the game. ESPN’s representation of our sport has amazed me. They treat our sport like we’re just a bunch of fat drunks, while they promote other “sports” like poker. While I’ve seen the Blanchard clip (embarrassingly titled “Epic Bowling Fail”) repeated over and over again on their network, I have yet to see one clip of Jason Belmonte’s 300 game. As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s about time the PBA packs its bags and finds a new network that will respect our sport, give it the coverage it deserves, and look to do more promotion of the sport than just sucking every dollar it can out of what it thinks their viewers need to see.
That’s just my 2 cents. If you have any other thoughts, I would love to hear them.
Kretzer Wins Match Play Championship
The TV finals of the PBA Go RVing Match Play Championship featured Brian Kretzer and Patrick Allen. The format of the TV finals was a three game series, taking total pins. With this format, only the final two bowlers make the TV show. The other two semifinalists were Ryan Ciminelli and Doug Kent.
In the final match, Kretzer posted scores of 192, 241, and 196 for a 629 series. Allen had a 185, 167, and a 214 for a 566 series. Kretzer won the match and the title. This is Brian Kretzer’s first PBA title. Kretzer became the sixth “first time winner” of the 2009 – 2010 PBA season. In winning this event, Kretzer took home the first place prize of $25,000.
See which equipment the pros were using on my InTheBag page for the PBA Go RVing Match Play Championship.
Scroggins Wins Don Johnson Eliminator
The finals of the PBA Etonic Don Johnson Eliminator started off with Osku Palermaa leading the first game, but it soon showed that didn’t mean much in the format of this event. The first game had Palermaa leading with a 233 game. Brian Kretzer had a 211, Mike Scroggins had a 203, and Wes Malott was low with 195. Malott was eliminated during this round. The next game had Scroggins leading with a 254 game. Brian Kretzer was close behind with a 245, while Palermaa fell short with a 211 and was eliminated. The finals had Scroggins and Kretzer facing off. Scroggins won the match by a score of 206-195.
This is Mike Scroggins’ 8th career title and his 1st this season. Scroggins also won the USBC Red, White, and Blue tournament, but that event was not a PBA event. Scroggins won this event while using a Columbia 300 Full Swing and a Total Bedlam. See which equipment the other pros were using on my InTheBag page for the Don Johnson Eliminator.
TV Finals Set for PBA Don Johnson Eliminator
The TV finals field has been set for the PBA Etonic Don Johnson Eliminator. The final four players advancing are Osku Palermaa, Wes Malott, Brian Kretzer, and Mike Scroggins. Sean Rash had led the tournament throughout qualifying, but was eliminated in the group led by Palermaa. This event is being held on the PBA Chameleon pattern.
The scoring pace for this event has been fairly high, with most bowlers averaging over 200 for the week. The 14-game cut score to the top 30 bowlers was 3034 (+234, 216.71 Average). The 28-game cut to the top 16 was 6162 (+562, 220.07 Average). Once bowlers reached the round of 16, they were put into groups of four. In each round, they bowled a 3-game series and eliminated the lowest bowler in each group. This eliminated four bowlers in each round, until we now reach the final four.
The TV finals will have all four bowlers facing off in the first game. Three games will be bowled, with one bowler being eliminated after each game. The TV finals will air live on ESPN at 12:30 PM Eastern Time on Sunday, March 7, 2010.
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