Entries available for BR Singles event at Circle

BATON ROUGE, LA – With the city bowling tournament heading to its second weekend at All-Star Lanes, attention will soon turn to the December edition of the BR Singles event at Circle Bowl.

The event, which offers some bowler who can survive qualifying, semifinals and a 32-player single elimination bracket in two-game matches, is set for Dec. 1 and 2.

What is also becoming very popular is the Friday night sweeper which has been held with the last several events. That is scheduled for Nov. 30 at Circle.

Entries forms are out and available. Read about how to advance enter because what is being found is that many shift spots are filling up quickly now ahead of time so to get the time you want it may be wise to enter early.

This will be the first BR event also with the new approaches on the Circle Bowl lanes and if you’ve been watching the scores lately, things are pretty good scoring wise in leagues at the oldest center in Baton Rouge.

Fox telecast field set

The 2018 PBA Clash, a special event involving the season’s top eight players in combined PBA Tour and World Bowling Tour earnings, is set to be taped Dec. 10, at Kegel Training Center in Lake Wales, Fla., and also will serve as the kickoff event for the Go Bowling! PBA Tour’s inaugural season of television coverage on Fox and FS1 which begins with the PBA Hall of Fame Classic from the International Training and Research Center in Arlington, Texas, on Jan. 6.

The PBA Clash will air on FOX at 1:30 or 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 23, depending on what NFL game is shown locally and its start time.

The players who have qualified for the PBA Clash are Australia’s Jason Belmonte, Anthony Simonsen, Austin, Texas; Andrew Anderson, Holly, Michigan; EJ Tackett of Bluffton, Indiana; newly-crowned U.S. Open champion Dom Barrett of England; Brit Stuart Williams who now lives in the Phoenix area; Marshall Kent of Yakima, Washington, and U.S. Open runner-up Jakob Butturff of Chandler, Arizona.

The Clash telecast will include a $25,000 winner-take-all single-elimination competition in which all eight of the 2018 season’s leading money winners will begin by bowling a ninth-and-10th frame round, with the lowest scoring bowler based on total pinfall for two frames being eliminated. Subsequent elimination rounds will be one-ball, low-man-out until two survivors remain. The final match will be a traditional 10-frame game.

The telecast also will feature profiles on each of the eight players, the announcement of the 2018 Chris Schenkel PBA Player of the Year and the Harry Golden PBA Rookie of the Year, and a preview of the 2019 Go Bowling! PBA Tour schedule of Fox and FS1 telecasts.

Speaking of U.S. Open champ Barrett, the win made him title-eligible for election into the PBA Hall of Fame in the future, recording his second major championship among his seven overall titles.

Barrett, who also won the 2013 PBA World Championship, has a while to wait, however. The 33-year-old right-hander joined the PBA in 2010, which means he won’t become participation-eligible for the PBA Hall of Fame until 2030 – his 20th year of membership. In order to be placed on the HOF ballot, candidates must meet both title and participation eligibility requirements.

Prep season getting close

The 2019 high school bowling season isn’t that far off and it appears that there will be over 70 schools around the state fielding teams and this will be a new sport for some teams as we will discuss soon in a future column as a new power point system will be introduced that will determine the teams that advance to the playoff round.

This is the next step after a very successful debut of a separate singles competition in 2018. We’ll go into some details in another column.

 Honor roll notes

Justin Bui had a 300 game en route to best set of the most recent 14-day reporting period with a 756 set at Circle Bowl, while Mary Mansur was again on top of her game with a 705 with a 268 high game at All-Star Lanes. Philip O’Neal posted 713 (268) in the Youth leagues, while Brien Stewart has a 662 (264) for the top Seniors score.