By JILL WINTERS
PBA Communications
HAMMOND, Ind. – Last month, John Marsala won his sixth PBA50 regional title, and he hopes to add a third career PBA50 national title this week.
The left-hander has been a model of consistency. On Tuesday, he rolled a perfect game to get to sixth place after the first day of qualifying at the 2024 PBA50 South Shore Classic.
Then on Wednesday, he started off with a 288 ending up with the same seven-game block total of 1,628 as he did Tuesday to take over first place at the end of qualifying.
Marsala feels comfortable inside Olympia Lanes having finished in 10th place last year and cashing in seasons prior. With that level of comfort comes confidence, which he feels he had been lacking the last couple of weeks.
He took advantage of a little more hook Wednesday, and he was making spares, as opposed to his struggle, at times, last week in Jonesboro.
“Coming in as the leader builds a ton of confidence,” the St. Louis native said. “I have been able to qualify pretty much every week, but getting past the qualifying rounds is where I have been struggling this year. I need to make sure I am hitting my target and try to ride the wave.”
Marsala is known on the PBA50 Tour for making some delicious smoked meat while at tournament stops, but he admits he left his smoker at home because he is focusing on doing what he has got to do on the lanes.
He holds a 43-pin lead over Troy Stus and Tom Hess. Chris Barnes is in fourth place followed by John Janawicz and Dino Castillo, who was leading on Tuesday, tied in fifth place.
The final player to make the cut in 32nd place is Russell Hunt at +169. Akron’s Don Hogue finished 39th to miss the cut by 52 pins.
All qualifying pins will carry over into the four games bowled in the advancers’ round starting at 10 a.m. Thursday. The field will then be cut to the top 24 with the top 8 players receiving first-round byes. All pins will be dropped prior to bracket match play. They will be the best two out of three game sets starting at 12:30 p.m. with qualifiers 9 through 24.
Those winners and the top 8 will bowl in the Round of 16 scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m.
After a re-oil, the winners move into the Round of 8 starting at 5 p.m. The final four undefeated bowlers will advance to the stepladder finals according to their bracket seed number, and the highest seeded losing bowler in the Round of 8 will be the No. 5 seed.
The stepladder finals is set to begin at 8:30 p.m. You can watch it all play out only on BowlTV.
DOMBROWSKI TOPS REGIONAL
MINSTER — Parma right-hander Patrick Dombrowski averaged 236.13 on A squad to take the qualifying lead during the PBA Kremer Roofing Central Classic on Thursday at Community Lanes.
Dombrowksi holds a 34-pin lead over Urbana left-hander Graham Fach (1,855), with Willowick right-hander Dean Vargo (1,848) holding down the third spot.
Also making the cut was Northfield two-handed left Ryan Liederbach, who is sitting sixth with 1,800 after winning the last two Central Region events, including two weeks ago in Fairlawn.
Ramsey Basurta was the final player to make the 20-player cut from the original 63-player field with 1,704 for the eight-game qualifier. The top 20 return for today’s four-game advancers’ round at noon, before the field again is cut for the four-game semifinal round at 2:30 p.m. following by the stepladder rolloff.
This is the first of two Central Region events this week, with action moving Saturday to the PBA bowlerstore.com Central Classic, presented by Moxy’s Xtra Pair at Pla-Mor Lanes in Coldwater.