By DONOVAN GRUBAUGH
PWBA Communications
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Dayton left-hander Shannon Pluhowsky led qualifying at the 2026 Professional Women’s Bowling Association BowlTV Open, contested at ABC Gates Bowl, and placed herself into the record books in the process.
Her 12-game qualifying total of 2,991 is the second-highest 12-game qualifying block since the tour relaunched in 2015, behind only Jordan Snodgrass’ 3,018 at the 2025 PWBA BowlTV Open, which was held at Yorktown Lanes in Parma Heights
Pluhowsky’s last two wins also came at ABC Gates Bowl in 2025, closing out the season with victories at the PWBA Pepsi Open and PWBA Tour Championship to become eligible for the PWBA Hall of Fame in the Performance category.
“(Being here) brings a level of confidence because of the success I’ve had here,” Pluhowsky said. “And once you bowl a place a lot, you kind of know what you’re going to get. So, when we’re moving pairs and doing all that, plus we didn’t re-oil today, which is the first time in a while. For me, I ended good this morning and then sat and kind of had a really good game plan, so I just continued on.”
Defending BowlTV Open champion New Hui Fen of Singapore, who won this title as one of two at Yorktown in the Summer Series a year ago, was second with 2,908, followed by Germany’s Birgit Noreiks at 2,879 and South Korea’s Seo Yeon Ryu at 2,834. Jordan Snodgrass of Adrian, Mich., qualified fifth with 2,824, while Julia Bond of Aurora, Ill., was sixth at 2,810.
Karsyn Lukosius of Freehold, N.J. (2,791), Olivia Farwell of Elizabethtown, Pa. (2,787), Bailey Delrose of Crest Hill, Ill. (2,776), Singapore’s Cherie Tan (2,773), Finland’s Peppi Konsteri (2,766) and Malaysia’s Sin Li Jane (2,757) rounded out the top 12.
Pluhowsky said lane transitions were relatively manageable throughout qualifying, allowing her to make small adjustments while staying ahead of the changes.
“There wasn’t really a lot of burn, but we did start on the low end, which usually doesn’t hook as much,” Pluhowsky said. “That first pair was actually hooking, but after that I didn’t have to move a ton. As we progressed through the house, I knew the tendency, so I was able to make little subtle moves to stay ahead of it.”
With round-robin match play set for Saturday morning, Pluhowsky’s focus remains on execution after feeling more comfortable physically than she did earlier in the season.
“The goal is just to come in and make shots,” Pluhowsky said. “The first tournament didn’t go very good, I missed a bunch of spares but today was different. I felt physically a lot better today, I felt like I repeated shots a lot better today. When the picture’s pretty clear, it’s easy to stay on top of things. Hopefully tomorrow they’re about the same. We have burn again tomorrow, and three other lefties made the cut, so there will be some traffic. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
Five perfect games were thrown during Friday’s qualifying blocks, bringing the total number of 300s to 20, tying the record set during the 2025 season. One of those 300s came during the last game of qualifying by Delrose to jump into the top 12.
“Going into that game, I knew I kind of had to shoot a number to really even have a chance to cash,” said Delrose. “I was really just trying to stay comfortable within the cash number, but once I kind of saw that I had a really good look on that pair, I just went with it, stayed within myself and tried to make good shots.”
The perfect game capped a strong finish for Delrose, who said her growth since her rookie season in 2024 has come from improvements both physically and mentally.
“I’ve definitely learned a lot just being out here with all these amazing ladies and also working on my physical game,” Delrose said. “Just being more mentally present, staying in the moment and trying to have fun with it. This is bowling, it’s supposed to be fun.”
Delrose advanced to Saturday’s round-robin match play in ninth place with a 12-game total of 2,776 and expects scoring pace to remain high.
“Striking is still going to be crazy high,” Delrose said. “So it’s just about being able to see it from pair to pair and being aggressive with moves.”
Match play for the PWBA BowlTV Open begins at 9 a.m. Saturday with the first six-game block before the second block starts at 2 p.m. The top five after match play will advance to the stepladder finals, set to start at 6:30 p.m.