Throwing his traditional rocket to the pocket, Eugene McCune of Munster, Ind., successfully defended his PBA Cheetah Open presented by Ebonite title Sunday at Fountain Bowl.
McCune, who was the top qualifier for the stepladder finals, defeated PBA Hall of Famer and 35-time Tour titlist Pete Weber of St. Ann, Mo., 245-229, in the championship match for his third career win.

“Anytime I can play outside on the lane and throw it hard it plays in my favor,” said McCune who estimated he was throwing the ball at a little over 20 miles per hour. “It’s old school and that’s where I feel most comfortable.”

McCune won his second career title last season when, as tournament leader, he defeated Norm Duke, 238-237, to win the Cheetah Championship. It was during the match play round of that event that McCune broke the PBA nine-game scoring record with a 2,468 pinfall (274.22 average). In this year’s Cheetah Open, conducted on PBA’s Cheetah lane conditioning pattern, he averaged 253 for the tournament.

“When I bowl on this condition there’s a little pressure because I know I need to take advantage of it,” he added. “I was a little worried after the first two frames of the tournament when I had open frames but I went to a different ball and made a couple of other adjustments and got back on track.”

McCune was the first player to successfully defend a Tour title since Chris Barnes won back-to-back events in Columbus, Ohio, in the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons.

The landmark Cheetah Open was the first PBA Tour event streamed live exclusively on PBA’s Xtra Frame online bowling channel. Three more Xtra Frame events are scheduled during the remainder of the season.

“It was going to be a good match because he’s one of the best on this pattern and I match up real well in this house,” said Weber, who was trying for his 36th Tour title. “It was a good match for a while until I had a couple bad shots.”

Weber defeated fellow Hall of Famer Duke in the opening stepladder match, 237-226, to advance to the semi-final against Josh Blanchard of Gilbert, Ariz., who was rebounding after his fall on the approach during the PBA World Championship Mike Aulby Division Final telecast on ESPN two weeks ago. Weber defeated Blanchard in the semifinal 248-165.

1月21日（土）現地時間午前9時と午後4時からの2シフトに別れて行われた予選（9G）では、日本の選手6名（玉井慎一郎、井口 直之、斉藤 茂雄、工藤 貴志、金子 俊之、小林 哲也）がAシフトで投球し、斉藤は11位、工藤は19位で通過しマッチプレーラウンドに進んだ。

他の“JPBA戦士”は金子が89位、玉井が108位、井口が115位、小林が140位だった。

予選トップはJAPANCUP2010で２位のD・カスティーヨ。300点のスタートで、8G目にも300点をマークし257,33のアベレージだった。また、カットラインの24位のスコアは241,67というハイアベレージ。

22日（日）は朝9時からマッチプレーラウンド１（6G）が行われ、レーンメンテナンスを挟んで午後1時半からマッチプレーラウンド２（6G）とポジションラウンド（1G）が行われた。

ラウンド１の斉藤はスタートから257・254・258で3連勝したものの、4・5G目を連敗、6G目に2ピン差で勝利し4勝2敗で9位に浮上。

ラウンド２に入ると4G目の278（対戦相手はN・デューク）以外は思うようにスコアが伸びず、11位まで順位を下げてトップ４（Xtra-Frameステップラダー）進出は絶望となり、最終のポジションマッチでもP・アレンに敗れ15位（1,450＄）でこの大会を終了した。

一方の工藤は連敗スタートで4G目にはB・オニールに300点を打たれたものの、5・6Gは勝利。ラウンド１では3勝3敗で23位に順位を下げた。

ラウンド２に入っても2G目にN・デュークに300点を打たれ、その後もスコアを伸ばせず24位に低迷、最終ポジションでも敗れ3勝10敗の24位（1,150＄）で終了した。

上位4名は、ディフェンディングチャンピオンのE・マッキューンがトップで、以下J・ブランチャード、一昨年のチャンピオンのN・デューク、P・ウエーバーと言う顔ぶれが残り、優勝を争う。

インターネット配信による「Xtra-Frameステップラダー」はGAME-1でN・デューク対P・ウエーバーと言う“豪華対戦”となり、終盤まで接戦が続きノームがパンチアウトすればプレーオフとなる展開も、237vs226でノームの4位（2,600＄）が決定。続くGAME-2ではピートの圧勝！3位（3,000＄）はブランチャード。優勝決定戦（Final）はマッキューンが中盤5連続ストライクを決め、ストライクの来ないピートを16ピン差で敗って昨年の同大会以来の３勝目を飾った。優勝賞金は10,000＄、2位は5,000＄。

明日（現地時間1月23日）からは場所をラスベガスに移して「USBCマスターズ」が開催される。

上記6名にロバート・リーを加えた7名が参戦するので、こちらも期待したいところだ。

England’s Stuart Williams, a third-year Professional Bowlers Association competitor, defeated Venezuela’s Ildemaro Ruiz, 246-194, to win the PBA Bayer Viper Open at South Point Casino and Hotel, becoming the first English bowler ever to win a PBA Tour title.

The finals of the Bayer Viper Open, the first of four PBA “animal pattern” championships contested during the PBA World Series of Bowling, aired Sunday on ESPN.

Williams, 30, started the title match with a spare and then reeled off five strikes in a row, building an insurmountable 44-pin lead when Ruiz failed to convert the 3-10 “baby split” in the fifth frame and missed a 10 pin in the sixth. Along with his first PBA Tour title, Williams earned $15,000 and an automatic berth in the Round of 36 for the end-of-season PBA Tournament of Champions, April 8-15 at Red Rock Lanes in Las Vegas.

“This is the best. It’s great. I’m really excited,” Williams said. “Once you’ve won, it makes it easier the second time. It certainly loosens up the arm swing.

“Bowling on the PBA Tour is all about learning the different moves you have to make. I had one full season, and half a season last year, and I feel like I learned a great deal,” he continued. “I spoke to the right people and they helped me out a lot. I throw many less bad shots per game now. I try to throw at least nine good shots a game, rather than six or seven. When you’re playing against the best players in the world, you can’t get away with throwing those bad shots.

“Today you had to be more conscious about using your speed adjustments rather than opening up angles. That’s one of the attributes of my game, so I felt comfortable that if I could just get through two games and the lanes didn’t get too easy, I felt like I had a pretty good chance.”

Williams established himself in the first game of the three-game eliminator finals, throwing nine strikes in 12 attempts for a 238. Ruiz was next with a 213, Sean Rash of Montgomery, Ill., posted a 203 and qualifying leader Mike Fagan of Dallas was eliminated with a 192 for the round’s lowest score.

Ruiz led the closely-contested game two with a 201. Williams advanced to the title match with a mistake-free 197. Rash was eliminated with a 186 game. A 4-6-10 split in the third frame and an unconverted 1-2-6-10 spare attempt in the ninth ended Rash’s hopes.

The victory gave Williams a feeling of redemption after a disappointing 2010-11 season that began when he was denied entry into the United States over a visa problem, causing him to miss the entire PBA World Series of Bowling.

“It comes down to what does it take to make you stronger,” Williams said. “We all have to go through adversity and it was my turn. Everything has gone well since then.”
A title winner in bowling competitions in nine different countries, Williams was thrilled to add the United States as his 10th.

“Being the first English title winner has become my specialty,” he smiled “I was the first Englishman to win on the European Bowling Tour, too, so hopefully this will lead to a flood of English wins on the American tour.”

On Sunday, Jan. 29, ESPN will air the finals of the Alka Seltzer Plus Liquid Gels USBC Masters live at 12:30 p.m. ET (9:30 a.m. PT) from Sunset Station’s Strike Zone in Henderson, Nev. The second major championship of the 2011-12 PBA Tour season offers a $50,000 first prize along with a berth in the Round of 36 for the PBA Tournament of Champions. Tom Hess of Urbandale, Iowa, is defending champion.

PBA’s online bowling channel, Xtra Frame, will webcast live coverage of the qualifying and three-game, double-elimination match play competition in the Masters Tuesday through Friday. A one-month subscription to Xtra Frame is available for $7.99 and a full-year subscription is $64.99. To enroll, visit pba.com and click on the Xtra Frame logo.

Dino Castillo of Carrollton, Texas, bowled two 300 games and averaged 257.33 Saturday to lead qualifying in the PBA Cheetah Open presented by Ebonite at Fountain Bowl.
Castillo had games of 300, 258, 256, 279, 238, 235, 192, 300 and 258 for a 2,316 nine-game pinfall total on the high-scoring PBA Cheetah lane conditioning pattern to top 24 players who advanced to Sunday morning’s match play round. In all, 13 300 games were bowled in Saturday’s qualifying.

“It’s a high-scoring pace, of course, which means you really have to concentrate on staying one step ahead.” said Castillo, who has a previous best PBA Tour finish of second that came in the 2010 Japan Cup. “Your concentration really has to focus on not just hitting the pocket but getting the ball through the pins.

“For me that requires getting the ball to go right on the lane so I can get the best angle to the pocket,” he added. “I tried so hard to do that a couple of times I threw it in the gutter—I guess I tried too hard.”

Castillo finished 21 pins ahead of PBA Hall of Famer and 34-time Tour titlist Norm Duke of Clermont, Fla., in second with 2,295. Rounding out the top five were Josh Blanchard, Gilbert, Ariz., 2,273; defending Cheetah Open champion Eugene McCune, Munster, Ind., 2,268, and two-time Tour winner Michael Haugen Jr., Carefree, Ariz., 2,257.
The landmark Cheetah Open is the first PBA Tour event to be streamed live exclusively on PBA’s Xtra Frame online bowling channel. Three more Xtra Frame events are scheduled during the remainder of the season.

After Sunday morning’s match play round, the field will be cut to the top four players who will compete in a stepladder final at 9 p.m. ET.

日本から参戦の斉藤茂雄 11位、工藤貴志 19位　共にマッチプレイラウンド進出

Finland’s Osku Palermaa became the first international player, and the first two-handed bowler, to win the Professional Bowlers Association World Championship when he defeated Ryan Shafer of Horseheads, N.Y., 203-177, in the 2011-12 season’s first major championship.

The PBA World Championship, which included a $50,000 first prize and a berth in the Round of 36 for the end-of-season PBA Tournament of Champions, aired Sunday on ESPN.

Palermaa, who had battled flu-like symptoms for two months leading into the World Championship, was feeling much better after winning his second career PBA title. He saved his best for the final game after surviving two earlier elimination games that saw fellow two-handed player Jason Belmonte of Australia and top qualifier Sean Rash of Montgomery, Ill., knocked out of contention.

The 28-year-old Finn started the title match in South Point Casino and Hotel’s exhibition hall with a 7-10 split, but that was his only open frame. Shafer threw only three strikes – two of them for his only double – but his failure to convert the 3-6-10 spare in the seventh frame proved fatal, shifting the match to Palermaa’s favor. Strikes in the ninth and 10th frame secured the victory for Palermaa, and extended Shafer’s PBA record for television appearances in major championships without a title to 13.

“I was grateful. I knew I had the pocket, but to see all 10 pins go down, I felt grateful,” Palermaa said. “The 7-10 was only one frame. After that, I threw a lot of strikes on the left lane, so it evened out. I don’t know if this makes me the best in the world, but I hope so.”

The anticipated showdown between Palermaa and Belmonte, the world’s premier two-handed players, created some excitement, but not in the way most observers expected. Rash dominated the first elimination game with a 245, Shafer was second with a 236, and Palermaa and Belmonte rolled to a 203-203 tie, forcing a one-ball roll-off to see who would advance and who would be eliminated.

In the roll-off, Belmonte barely touched the headpin, leaving the 2-4-5-8 “bucket.” Needing only seven pins, Palermaa struck to move on.

“All you can do is throw a good shot and you get what you get,” Palermaa said. “Seeing Jason leave a bucket helped. But I bowled a good game. It is what it is.”

In the second elimination game, Shafer, a 25-year PBA Tour veteran, struck on his last four shots to finish with a 222. Palermaa threw three strikes in the 10th for a 217. Rash, who dominated the World Championship qualifying rounds, saw his title hopes collapse when he left a 7-10 in the ninth frame, finishing with a 193.

The finals were conducted on the PBA’s Scorpion lane condition, selected by Rash as the leading qualifier in the field.

Next Sunday, ESPN will televise the finals of the Bayer Viper Open at 3 p.m. ET. Finalists in the first of four “animal pattern” championships contested during the PBA World Series of Bowling will be Stuart Williams of England, Ildemaro Ruiz of Venezuela, Rash and Mike Fagan of Dallas. A preview of the Bayer Viper Open finals will be webcast on PBA’s official online bowling channel, Xtra Frame, on Wednesday.