By JILL WINTERS
PBA Communications
COLUMBUS – PBA60 Tristan’s T.A.P.S. Memorial Tournament defending champion Amleto Monacelli’s comfort level on the lanes Monday should worry the rest of the field after his blistering start.
Inside Wayne Webb’s Columbus Bowl, Monacelli shot 258, 300, 214, 243, 227, 276, 269 and 275 for 2,062, an average of 257.75.
“I think it was my best block ever on Tour, I’m pretty sure,” said the 61-year-old righto-hander and PBA Hall of Famer. “I love wood approaches and I feel really comfortable here.”
The smooth right-hander was focused on keeping his angles a lot straighter and in front of him, while also focusing on making sure his body was doing the right thing as well. And it just so happens it was one bowling ball in particular that led to a whole lot of strikes during his opening eight game block.
“Envy Tour from Hammer is an unbelievable ball and it matched up perfectly,” he said. “I had to keep throwing it until something strange happened but that never happened.”
Monacelli admits his only errors were a missed 4-pin and a couple of 10 pins where he rushed his shot and threw it too hard. That is one thing he plans to work on cleaning up. Otherwise, he plans to get his body into the same feel, watch his ball motion to see what ball he needs to use moving forward, and as the game changes make the right decisions.
Behind Monacelli is fellow B squad bowlers Pete Weber at 1,967 and Lyle Zikes at 1,943. Mike Dias is in fourth, leading the A squad followed by Matt Ballard in fifth.
Dias, a left-hander, averaged 242.38. He is very familiar with the Carmen Salvino 44-foot oil pattern using it when he gives lessons back home in Lafayette, Colorado. After a 192 in his first game, he got his feet far enough in on the lane and threw only his Storm Infinite PhysiX, making a few tweaks from pair-to-pair.
“All the 6’s tripped and the 7’s kicked out, so it was a good day,” he said. “I’ve been doing a little work on my game over the winter and some things are starting to come together.”
Among area players, Zanesville’s Ted Hannahs is 22nd (1,764), former Hartville resident Dick Gran is 30th (1,736) and former North Canton resident Tim Elsass is 48th (1,699) in the 112o-player field.
Glenn Smith also shot 300 to join Monacelli along with Doug Obryant.
The field will bowl eight more games of qualifying starting with the B squad at 10 a.m. Tuesday followed by the A squad at 4 p.m. The top 24 will advance to match play on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, qualifiers 9 through 24 will bowl three-game sets starting at 10 a.m. The winners of those matches and qualifiers 1 through 8 will bowl starting at noon. The round of eight will then take to the lanes at 3 p.m. to determine the final five players for the stepladder finals. The finals will begin at 5 p.m. Wednesday. All rounds will be livestreamed on BowlTV.com.
See complete standings here: