By KAYLI CHRIST and AARON SMITH
USBC Communications
BATON ROUGE, La. – Former Dayton resident Gregory Thompson Jr. of Gilbert, Arizona, recorded the first 300 game and 800 series at the 2025 United States Bowling Congress Open Championships during his doubles set Sunday at the Raising Cane’s River Center.
The powerful right-hander started doubles at the Raising Cane’s River Center with 19 strikes before rolling a seven count in the eighth frame of Game 2. He posted 28 strikes during the set on the way to games of 300, 264 and 246 for an 810 series.
The performance helped Thompson and Rusty Hahn of Mesa, Ariz., into fourth place in Regular Doubles at the time with 1,363. The pair now sits in sixth.
Steve Wright of Cypress, Texas, and Paul McCordic of Sugar Land, Texas, took over the top spot in Regular Doubles on Tuesday with 1,413.
Thompson’s road to 800 included a late string of strikes in Game 3. The 41-year-old started with three spares before recording a double in the fourth and fifth frames. After a spare in the sixth, he delivered strikes in the seventh, eighth and ninth to set up an exciting final frame.
Needing a strike, followed by a nine count and spare to get to exactly 800, the five-time Professional Bowlers Association Regional Tour champion rolled two more strikes and knocked over nine pins on his fill ball.
“It was always on my bucket list to shoot 300 at the Open Championships. I’ve had the first seven or eight a few times then I would throw a bad shot. But to have 800 with the 300 it’s just amazing,” Thompson said. “In the 10th frame I was just thinking about getting the ball off my hand cleanly. I had good ball reaction, so I knew if I got if my hand correctly, it was going to be close.
“The last game, I started kind of slow and left a couple of 9-pins. I tried to cheat my feet left and the ball never really picked up off the spot. I knew I had a chance for 800. But I talked to my buddy, Mike Fitzgerald, and he gave me an idea on what the two lanes were doing. It gave me the confidence to make the shots I needed to make down the stretch.”
Thompson added sets of 613 in singles and 574 in team to finish his 17th appearance at the USBC Open Championships with an all-events total of 1,997.
The Open Championships is celebrating its third trip to Baton Rouge in 2025 and scheduled to feature more than 58,000 bowlers and 11,600 five-player teams competing across 150 consecutive days at the River Center.