By NOLAN HUGHES
PBA Communications
MILWAUKEE — Shawn Maldonado carried over his stellar performance at the Kia PBA Tournament of Champions to the Guaranteed Rate PBA World Series of Bowling. Maldonado and teammate Tom Smallwood secured the top seed for the PBA Mark Roth/Marshall Holman Doubles Championship stepladder finals on Sunday.
The duo averaged more than 232 across 40 games to lead the talented field, rising from sixth to first during 16 games of round robin match play today.
Yesterday’s leaders, Osku Palermaa and Jakob Butturff, earned the two-seed for the show at +1,522. The 2019 champions, Sean Rash and Matthew Ogle, took the third seed.
The powerful one-handed team of Marshall Kent and EJ Tackett will look for redemption after last year’s third-place finish, earning the fourth seed. Tom Smallwood, who has a CBS television series based on his life and legendary 2009 breakthrough WSOB performance airing later this month, and Jason Sterner round out the finalists for Sunday’s show.
Smallwood and Sterner will face Kent and Tackett in the first match of Sunday’s telecast, airing at noon on Fox Sports’ FS1.
Everybody’s favorite YouTubers, Brad Miller and Kyle Sherman, finished in sixth place at +1,340. They missed the show by 44 pins.
Tim Mack and AJ Johnson began the day with back-to-back 300 games, but settled for a 14th place finish.
ROTH/HOLMAN DOUBLES CHAMPIONSHIP STEPLADDER FINALISTS
1, DJ Archer / Shawn Maldonado +1,582
2, Osku Palermaa / Jakob Butturff +1,522
3, Sean Rash / Matthew Ogle +1,482
4, Marshall Kent / EJ Tackett +1,419
5, Tom Smallwood / Jason Sterner +1,384
Find the final qualifying scores after 40 games here:
https://www.r2sports.com/website/standings.asp?TID=38032&divID=0&combinedID=202058