By NOLAN HUGHES
PBA Communications
NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Jakob Butturff and Bill O’Neill collected decisive victories in the quarterfinals of the PBA Players Championship presented by Snickers next weekend.
Butturff and O’Neill will join Anthony Simonsen and Kevin McCune in the semifinals next weekend at Bowlero North Brunswick. Simonsen and McCune won their quarterfinal matches in a pair of thrilling roll-offs earlier Sunday.
The eight-time PBA champion Butturff dismantled Keven Williams in the third quarterfinal match. He converted a pair of difficult six-count spares to open the match, but those would be his only shots to miss the pocket all match.
Holding a 13-pin advantage, Butturff packed all three strikes in the 10th frame to claim the first point in the Race-to-Two match.
Butturff didn’t stop there, recording a 10-strike 278 in Game 2 — the highest of all three televised rounds this weekend — to eliminate Williams.
“I think the biggest thing that I had, and I know the majority of lefties don’t have, is that I love to get in and out-hook them,” Butturff said. “I just had to find a way to get deeper than him on the lane and I think that’s what paid off in this two-game match.”
Williams said his poor ball reaction reminded him of what he saw towards the end of qualifying, where he struggled to bowl games over 210 consistently.
“That’s part of bowling,” Williams said. “Jakob matched up; he’s bowling sick, like he always does. He’s one of the best lefties on Tour for the last eight years or however long he’s been on Tour, so I can’t be mad about getting whooped like that.”
The final match of the night pitted New Jersey-raised Matt Russo against the lifelong eastern Pennsylvanian in O’Neill. The two jawed back and forth over the past couple of days.
In a unique twist, O’Neill reaped the benefits often enjoyed by the southpaws as the lone right-hander on the show. That proved to be a deciding factor in the match as the exacerbated transition puzzled Russo, who shot 160 in Game 1 without striking on the right lane’s 39-foot Carter pattern until the ninth frame.
“I honestly had no clue on the right lane,” Russo said. “(Butturff and Williams) both threw urethane on that lane and they were both far enough to the right there was really nothing to throw at. But then when you threw it at something, it just kept hooking. If it was too hard, it kept going. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like that, truthfully.”
Despite a slow start, Russo kept Game 2 closer as he struck on four of five shots late in the match. But O’Neill stayed clean to defeat the southpaw and advance to the semifinals.
O’Neill said if they had bowled the first match, before Butturff and Williams beat up the left side of the lane, the outcome may have been different.
“We see it all the time and the lefties don’t, so when they see those kinds of things, instinctually they just don’t know the moves,” O’Neill said. “On the flip side for me, on that left lane, I had nobody helping me break them down to the right and so the pattern played pretty flat. That was a mistake on my part, not to have a little more surface and play a little further right to create a little better ball reaction.”
If O’Neill wants to win a second career Players Championship, he will need to devise a better gameplan as he will face the highest-scoring player of the weekend in Butturff.
Simonsen, who became the first player to earn top-four finishes in all five majors in a single season, will face McCune in the other semifinal. Both matches will be held Saturday, May 13 at 12:30 p.m. on FS1.
With Simonsen and Butturff having secured spots in the PBA Super Slam Cup, the highest finisher between O’Neill and McCune will join them, EJ Tackett and Jason Belmonte in Florida the following weekend.
EARLIER MATCHES
In the first of two quarterfinal rounds, Simonsen and McCune prevailed.
Though Simonsen boasts nearly a decade’s worth of additional experience, the 26-year-old is only two years older than McCune. Neither player was old enough to vote — and Simonsen was barely old enough to drive — the last time the PBA Tour competed at Bowlero North Brunswick in New Jersey in 2014.
In the afternoon’s opening match, McCune dethroned EJ Tackett, the frontrunner for PBA Player of the Year. Tackett, the No. 1 seed, earned his fourth top seed in five majors this season and set a new PBA record.
McCune took Game 1 of the Race-to-Two match after Tackett left a 7-10 split in the 10th frame. Tackett needed one of the pins to force McCune to double, but missed both. McCune struck and converted a 6-pin to secure the first point.
In Game 2, Tackett could not figure out the 39-foot Carter pattern on the right lane. He tallied a Brooklyn strike, two open frames and a single-pin conversion in his four attempts leading into the final frame, where he would need to double to force a roll-off.
As he did to win both of his major titles, Tackett stepped up and delivered both strikes.
“Not dead yet!” he said.
In the roll-off, Tackett struck again on the right lane but split on the left lane, which featured the 45-foot Weber pattern. McCune, who defeated EJ’s younger brother Zac Tackett in Saturday’s Round of 12, seized the opportunity against another Indiana native.
“I wasn’t thinking of him as the hottest player on Tour,” McCune said. “I thought of him as a friend because I’ve known him since I was little. I just came out here to beat my friend in a very high intensity match.”
Though Simonsen came into the afternoon’s second match as the lowest remaining seed (No. 12), he carried the momentum entering his match against No. 4 Tomas Käyhkö.
Simonsen, perhaps sensing an opening with the Player of the Year favorite bowing out early, started off on fire. As Käyhkö struggled to knock over all 10 pins, much like he did at the U.S. Open earlier this season, Simonsen cruised to a Game 1 victory, 213-190.
Käyhkö switched to urethane on the right lane and flipped the script in Game 2, starting with the first five strikes. The two-handers each split in the ninth frame then aced all three strikes in the 10th, but Käyhkö won the game and forced the second roll-off of the afternoon.
After Simonsen tallied 40 for his two-frame pinfall, Käyhkö needed to double in his second frame to advance.
During his fill ball on the right lane, Käyhkö moved one board to the left and struck. It proved to be an adjustment he said he regretted as he left a ringing 10-pin to lose.
With the win, Simonsen clinched an unprecedented top-four finish in all five of this season’s majors.
In the meantime, players will make the short trek to Delaware as qualifying for the Roth-Holman PBA Doubles Championship at Bally’s Dover Casino Resort begins Tuesday.
But first, O’Neill will celebrate Sunday’s triumph near his hometown and his 13th wedding anniversary with his wife, Christi.
QUARTERFINAL SCORES
Match One: No. 9 Kevin McCune def. No. 1 EJ Tackett
Game 1: McCune def. Tackett, 193-192
Game 2: Tackett def. McCune, 211-208
Roll-Off: McCune def. Tackett, 49-24
Match Two: No. 12 Anthony Simonsen def. No. 4 Tomas Käyhkö
Game 1: Simonsen def. Käyhkö, 213-190
Game 2: Käyhkö def. Simonsen, 232-211
Roll-Off: Simonsen def. Käyhkö, 40-38
Match Three: No. 2 Jakob Butturff def. No. 10 Keven Williams
Game 1: Butturff def. Williams, 224-188
Game 2: Butturff def. Williams, 278-203
Match Four: No. 6 Bill O’Neill def. No. 3 Matt Russo
Game 1: O’Neill def. Russo, 218-160
Game 2: O’Neill def. Russo, 196-180
The fifth- through eighth-place finishers each earn $13,000.
SEMIFINAL MATCHES
Saturday, May 13 at 12:30 p.m. ET on FS1
No. 9 Kevin McCune vs. No. 12 Anthony Simonsen (Race-to-Two match)
No. 2 Jakob Butturff vs. No. 6 Bill O’Neill (Race-to-Two match)
Sunday, May 14 at 1 p.m. ET on FOX
Championship match (Best-of-five match)
TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
Saturday, May 13 | FS1
12:30 p.m. — Semifinals (Race-to-Two matches)
Sunday, May 14 | FOX
1 p.m. — Championship Round (Best-of-Five match)