By JILL WINTERS
PBA Communications
FORT MYERS, Fla. – A new Super Senior has found his way to the top of the leaderboard at the PBA50 Lightning Strikes Lanes Open.
After the completion of 14-games of qualifying, Tom Adcock shot 1,709 on Wednesday for a combined two-day score of 3,459.
Adcock credits his early success to crossing with day-one qualifying leader Tom Hess on Tuesday, “so it was easy to line-up off of him,” Adcock said. “Today, I decided to go a little bit farther right and a little bit firmer instead of softer and around it.”
Adcock used his 900 Global Zen Master for five games before it ran out of gas. He then started to move left using his 900 Global Altered Reality to give him a consistent look. Adcock still works full-time, so as long as he has his computer with him on the road, he will be working and bowling as many tournaments as he can in what is now his rookie season as a super senior.
“The competition is second to none,” he said. “I hope I can make it to the top and take home a trophy.”
While the high-scoring pace continued on Wednesday, Brad Angelo felt like his fellow players in the A squad at least broke down the lanes differently.
“They certainly didn’t develop like they did yesterday,” he said after moving up to second place. “Yesterday I was able to use a different part of the lane with a different ball and a different thought process. Two of the balls that I thought looked really good yesterday I couldn’t use today.”
He started with his 900 Global Altered Reality and switched to the Roto Grip RST X-1 for the last game and “made a good little run with that ball.”
Angelo’s late run included games of 268, 276, 257 and 246.
All pins carry forward into the advancers round as the top 43 players will bowl five games starting at 8 a.m. Thursday. The field will then be cut to the top 24 who will compete in bracket match play rounds of three-game sets with all pins being dropped.
“When you get to match play because of this format being three-games it is a whole different ballgame,” Angelo said. “The lanes won’t develop the same way because you don’t have everybody creating all of the traffic. You’ve got to adapt to what your opponent is doing and there is a whole lot more strategy then in our tradition round-robin format.”
Among area players, Akron’s Don Hogue (77th, 3,034), former Hartville resident Dick Gran (103rd, 2,898) and Canton’s Tony Johnson (124th, 2,713) failed to reach the 43-player Advancers Round. The cut for the final spot was 3,141.
Winners of matches nine through 24 from the Round of 24 will advance with the top eight in the Round of 16, with winners advancing to the Round of 8.
The stepladder finals will begin at 7 p.m. and will air live on BowlTV.
Michael Smith and Dennis Rakauskas had 300 games during the second round.
Also in the top eight after the 14 qualfying games is Hall of Famer Walter Ray Williams Jr., seventh with 3,328. Pete Weber (ninth, 3,316) and Chris Barnes (10th, 3,314) round out the top 10.
See complete scores here: