Bowling Video--2013 PBA WSOB World Championship

Bowling Video: 2012 PBA World Championship Preview

Men's Team USA Takes Two Golds and One Bronze in the Final Two Days of the PABCON Championships

"We had a good run this week, and it's hard to be too disappointed. This format is a total crapshoot and for us to get a couple medals is OK. We're always disappointed when we don't win, but we brought home the gold in the important events."

--Bill O'Neill

Congratulations to Men's Team USA for winning the gold medal in the five-person team event and to Bill O'Neill (photo above) for taking the gold in all events and co-winning, with Chris Barnes, the bronze medal in the Masters event of the now concluded PABCON Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Team USA ended up winning four out of six golds, 1 silver, and 1 bronze medal. Meanwhile, Canada's Dan MacLelland, who shined on the PBA Tour last season, took the gold in the Masters event.

After the five-person team competition that Team USA narrowly won over Puerto Rico, Chris Barnes had this to say:

"There's no doubt that the talent in the American Zone has gotten stronger and that showed today. It's always a good feeling when you get in a close situation and win. The bottom line is when it came down to the last game, we bowled well enough to pull it out while everyone was scrambling."

If Barnes is right, the era of Team USA's dominance in international bowling competitions, like its dominance in many other areas, may be swiftly drawing to a close. But it was fun while it lasted.

You can click here for the round-by-round results of the Masters competition.

PABCON Men's Championships Doubles Team Results

"After the performance this morning, we knew it was either us or nobody for a medal. It was just time for us to rise to the occasion so the team didn't get shut out."

--Patrick Allen

After sweeping all the gold medals in the last two PABCON Championships and 25 out of 30 since 1997, it wasn't looking good for Men's Team USA this year. Mike Fagan was the only member to medal in the singles event that opened the competition on Monday, taking a bronze, and after the first squad of doubles teams bowled yesterday, no doubles team from the USA was in contention to medal. The only USA team remaining to bowl in the afternoon squad was the team of Patrick Allen and Walter Ray Williams Jr. And this didn't look particularly promising given the fact that Walter Ray had finished in 20th place in singles.

However, Williams Jr. began the six game set with a sizzling 298 and 278, and he and Patrick Allen continued on to obliterate the PABCON Championships doubles record and win the gold medal by almost 200 pins over the Canadian team of Dan "The Man" MacLelland and Michael Schmidt that took the silver medal. Williams shot 1456 and Allen shot 1461 for a combined total of 2917 and a combined average of 243 on a condition that saw many teams struggling. For example, the team of Chris Barnes and Bill O'Neill finished in 11th place and averaged 214 for their six game set.

By the way, Patrick Allen leads all bowlers halfway through All Events, Walter Ray Williams Jr. is fifth, Mike Fagan sixth, Chris Barnes tenth, Bill O'Neill eleventh, and Wes Malott is eighteenth. Canada's Dan MacLelland is in second, just eight pins behind Allen.

Today features trios action. Team USA's two trios teams consist of Barnes, Fagan, and O'Neill on one team and Malott, Williams, and Allen on the other.

You can check all the results so far here.

Men's Team USA's Gold Medal Streak Ends in PABCON Championships

Well, it would have been nice to see Men's Team USA continue their dominance of the PABCON Men's Championships, but I suppose that all good things must come to an end. After sweeping all the gold medals in the previous two tournaments and winning 25 out of 30 golds since 1997, they had to settle for Mike Fagan's bronze medal in the singles competition. Columbia's Manuel Otalora (see photo above) won the gold, and Canada's Dan "The Man" MacLelland took the silver. Bill O'Neill was fifth, Wes Malott sixth, Chris Barnes seventh, Patrick Allen eighth, and Walter Ray Williams Jr. finished in 20th place.

Today's action will move to doubles competition. The Team USA pairings will feature Chris Barnes and Bill O'Neill, Mike Fagan and Wes Malott, and Patrick Allen with Walter Ray Williams Jr.

You can click here for the USBC press release about yesterday's action and watch a video below of bowlers competing in the tournament.

PBA Announces Its 2010-2011 Award Winners

Congratulations to Mika Koivuniemi for winning the Chris Schenkel PBA Player of the Year award, to Scott Norton for winning Harry Golden Rookie of the Year honors, and to Jack "The Ripper" Jurek for taking the Steve Nagy Sportsmanship award.

Koivuniemi won the PBA Tournament of Champions, was the only player to make it into the televised finals of all four "majors," earned the third highest amount in prize money for a season in PBA history at $330,040, and led the PBA Tour in average at 222.50. Norton, who won the Pepsi Chameleon Championship his first time on national TV, was the only rookie to win any national title this year. And Jurek, who also won the Steve Nagy award in 2006, was, according to the PBA press release, "an overwhelming choice" to win the award again this year.

I can't say that I disagree with any of these choices. The only question I have is about the Rookie of the Year voting. Scott Norton received 445 votes, while "no other player received more than 15." My question is, Wasn't Dan MacLelland also a rookie this season, and didn't he qualify for four telecasts and outpoint Norton by a wide margin in the major statistical categories? If so, why did he lose to Norton by such an overwhelming margin? It seems to me that either he wasn't officially a Tour rookie, or a grave injustice was served in his receiving so few votes relative to Norton.

You can read the PBA press release on the award selections here.

Jason Thomas Praises Dan MacLelland

Jason Thomas has just posted an article on pba.com, Dan MacLelland is Breakthrough Star of 10-11 Season. Here is a choice quote:

"MacLelland possesses one of the strongest strike balls on Tour, a sick, vertical backswing with perfect balance, and his ability to compete on difficult conditions (he qualified 5th for the U.S. Open telecast, which is considered the toughest condition on the Tour) made him a threat any given week. He also can roll the big scores as well, once shooting a "low 6" (that would be a perfect 600 series) for a 2-game sweeper at the South Point in Las Vegas during a megabuck amateur event prior to his debut on Tour."