Thursday, May 12, 2011

Bill O'Neill Catapults Men's Team USA to Trios Gold in PABCON Championships


"Our first couple of days here were pretty rough, but we're pretty smart and once we see a pattern for six games, we know what it takes out there. We've gotten more comfortable with this bowling center, and we utilized one of our biggest strengths, which is communication."
--Bill O'Neill


Team USA continues to gather steam in the PABCON Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico. After taking only a bronze medal in the singles first event Monday, they have earned gold with record setting scores in both doubles Tuesday and trios Wednesday along with a silver in trios and seem poised to make a good accounting of themselves in the marquee five-man team event today.

Bill O'Neill averaged a stratospheric 260 on games of 296-248-211-258-268-279 to lead his trios team of himself, Chris Barnes, and Mike Fagan to victory, followed by the team of Wes Malott, Patrick Allen, and Walter Ray Williams Jr.

O'Neill's effort was made all the more impressive by the fact that he performed it on the 44 foot London oil pattern on the left lane and the 34 foot Stockholm pattern on the right lane. I don't know how anyone could average 260 on a dual pattern of such extremes, but I'm not surprised that O'Neill was the guy who did it! By contrast, his teammate Chris Barnes averaged 221 and Mike Fagan averaged 214.

After the bowlers complete the six game team event today, the top sixteen players in the all events standings will face each other in match play in the culminating Masters event Friday. Right now, Team USA has all six of its players in the top 10 with Bill O'Neill in first, Patrick Allen in third, Walter Ray Williams Jr. in fifth, Mike Fagan in seventh, Chris Barnes in ninth, and Wes Malott in tenth. Canada's Dan "The Man" MacLelland is in second place and has probably been more consistently excellent throughout all the events thus far than anyone else. Team Venezuela's PBA Hall of Famer Amletto Monacelli resides in fifteenth place.

You can read more about yesterday's trios event and check all the trios and cumulative results here.

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