Aug/Sep 2017 -
13
O’Keefe Claims PWBA
St. Petersburg Clearwater
Open Title
By Terry Bigham
PLANO, Texas – Coming off a three-title season and
then coaching her collegiate team to two national titles,
Shannon O’Keefe of O’Fallon, Illinois, seemingly could
do no wrong.
But bowling seems to have a way of challenging even
the best players, and it took a little longer for O’Keefe
to make her first television appearance of the 2017
PWBA Tour season.
The top seed for the PWBA St. Petersburg-
Clearwater Open, O’Keefe captured her fifth career
PWBA title with a 202-200 victory over Colombia’s
Clara Guerrero. The stepladder finals were televised
Tuesday on CBS Sports Network.
When the final match reached the 10th frame,
O’Keefe simply had to watch as Guerrero stepped up
with an opportunity to take the title with two strikes and
a nine-count. But Guerrero left the 4-6-7-10 combina-
tion and did not convert the spare.
That left O’Keefe needing a spare and nine pins to
take the match, and she took advantage of the opening
to win the event and, in the process, turn around a
troubling season.
“It’s been a challenging year,” O’Keefe said. “I missed
the very first cut by seven pins, was frustrated by that,
then dug my heels in and just had to grind every week.
Then, in the middle of the season, I missed back-to-
back cuts and was really upset. I don’t think I have
been that upset over bowling, ever.”
Her thoughts went from questioning what she was
doing to possibly taking a week off and going home.
Instead, her husband, Bryan, worked with her each
round of the PWBA Orlando Open, including practice
sessions, giving her one goal on which to focus.
“He said to exaggerate my push away, then work on
keeping my elbow a little tighter at the bottom, then the
next round was keep my left arm really stable,” said
O’Keefe, who coaches the McKendree women’s bowl-
ing team during the school year. “By the end of the
tournament, it’s the best I have felt throwing the ball in
a year and a half. And that just snowballed into the rest
of the season.”
Guerrero, who has battled injuries since late last year,
also was making her first TV appearance of the season
and was attempting to climb the stepladder as the No.
4 seed.
In the opening match, Guerrero struck on four of her
first six shots to get past Danielle McEwan of Stony
Point, New York, 215-198.
Also making her first TV appearance was Giselle
Poss of Montgomery, Illinois, a 2016-2017 National
Tenpin Coaches Association first-team All-American at
Vanderbilt competing in just her fourth PWBA event.
Poss held a slim lead heading into the seventh frame,
but back-to-back open frames – missing a 7-pin and
failing to convert the more difficult 2-4-8-10 combina-
tion – cut short her bid to advance as Guerrero took a
235-214 victory to reach the title match.
The qualifying and match-play rounds of the PWBA
St. Petersburg-Clearwater Open took place July 6-8 at
Seminole Lanes in Seminole, Florida. It was the sec-
ond consecutive year Seminole Lanes hosted the tour-
nament. The stepladder finals were one of three shows
taped at Plano Super Bowl, in conjunction with the U.S.
Women’s Open, for later broadcast on CBS Sports
Network.
PWBA ORLANDO OPEN
Final standings
1, Shannon O’Keefe, O’Fallon, Ill., 202 (one game), $10,000
2, Clara Guerrero, Colombia, 650 (three games), $5,000
3, Giselle Poss, Montgomery, Ill., 214 (one game), $3,500
4, Danielle McEwan, Stony Point, N.Y., 198 (one game),
$3,000
Stepladder results
Match One –
Guerrero def.
McEwan, 215-198
Semifinal –
Guerrero def. Poss,
235-214
Championship –
O’Keefe def.
Guerrero, 202-200
McEwan Wins 2017 Nationwide
PWBA Rochester Open
By Matt Cannizzaro
PLANO, Texas
– After falling short in two recent op-
portunities to win the third title of her Professional
Women’s Bowling Association Tour career, Danielle
McEwan of Stony Point, New York, finally was able to
find the winner’s circle in the last standard event of the
2017 season.
The 25-year-old right-hander topped fellow Team USA
member Shannon Pluhowsky of Dayton, Ohio, 226-
224, to win the 2017 Nationwide PWBA Rochester
Open.
In the see-saw match, Pluhowsky jumped out to an
early lead with four strikes in her first five frames, but a
missed 10 pin in the sixth frame shifted the momentum
in McEwan’s favor.
McEwan answered with strikes in frames seven
through nine, and Pluhowsky struck in the eighth and
ninth frames to set up the 10th frame most bowlers
dream of – getting the chance to deliver in the final
frame to win a professional title.
McEwan finished first, leaving a 10 pin on her first
offering and a 7-10 split on the fill ball after the spare.
That gave Pluhowsky, a 35-year-old left-hander, the
opportunity to win her first official PWBA Tour title with
two strikes and one pin.
The 17-time Team USA veteran threw the first shot for
a strike. But, she nicked the ball return cover on her
second shot, and, instead of stopping, she continued
and left the 2-4 combination, allowing McEwan to win
on the bench.
“I was pretty much down the whole match, but I tried to
be optimistic after throwing the best shots I could in the
10th frame,” said McEwan, who won one title in each of
the last two seasons (2015 and 2016). “It’s never a
good feeling to sit down knowing it’s in the other
player’s hands, especially at this level. I absolutely ex-
pected her to throw
great shots in that
situation, but I was
fortunate to come
away with the win.”
When McEwan
qualified for the
c h a m p i o n s h i p
round of the PWBA
Rochester Open, it
was the third show
she made in as
many weeks and
her fourth of the
season.
She suffered a couple of disappointing losses in the
finals of the PWBA Orlando Open and PWBA St. Pe-
tersburg-Clearwater Open, where she finished third and
fourth, respectively, and she entered the finals of the
Rochester event motivated to end the streak on a posi-
tive note.
The win earned McEwan $10,000 and a spot in the
season-ending Smithfield PWBA Tour Championship in
Richmond, Virginia, a 16-player invitation-only event
she won in 2015 for her first title. The tournament will
include the winners and top point-earners from the
2017 PWBA Tour season.
Pluhowsky earned her spot in the title match of the
Rochester Open with a 254-181 win against fellow
southpaw Kristina Szczerbinski of North Tonawanda,
New York, a former collegiate standout at the Univer-
sity of Maryland Eastern Shore, who was making her
first PWBA television appearance.
In the three seasons of the relaunched PWBA Tour,
Pluhowsky has made nine championship-round ap-
pearances but continues to fall short on TV. She does
have two major victories, the 2006 United States Bowl-
ing Congress Queens and the 2014 Bowling Proprie-
tors’ Association of America All-Star, but an official
PWBA win has eluded her.
“I bowled two good games on TV this time, and I feel
like I’m getting closer, but it just hasn’t happened yet,”
said Pluhowsky, who had three runner-up finishes in
2016. “I had a lot of fun out there, and I threw some
really good shots. The result may have been disap-
pointing, but I can see a lot of progress, too. You can’t
learn if you’re not there, so I’ll keep doing everything I
can to get into that position.”
Although Pluhowsky hasn’t won a title in 2017, her
consistent performance earned her enough points to
qualify for the PWBA Tour Championship, where she’ll
have one more opportunity to win.
In the opening game of the PWBA Rochester Open
stepladder, Szczerbinski tossed four strikes in her first
five frames to build a lead Colombia’s Clara Guerrero
could not overcome.
Although Guerrero, a PWBA major champion, started
the match with two strikes, she was unable to knock
down more than eight pins on her first shot the rest of
the way, allowing Szczerbinski to notch her first TV win,
201-149.
2017 NATIONWIDE PWBA ROCHESTER OPEN
At Plano Super Bowl, Plano, Texas
Final standings
1, Danielle McEwan, Stony Point, N.Y., 226 (one
game), $10,000
2, Shannon Pluhowsky, Dayton, Ohio, 478 (two
games), $5,000
3, Kristina Szczerbinski, North Tonawanda, N.Y., 382
(two games), $3,500
4, Clara Guerrero, Colombia, 149 (one game), $3,000
Stepladder results
Match One
– Szczerbinski def. Guerrero, 201-149
Semifinal
– Pluhowsky def. Szczerbinski, 254-181
Championship
– McEwan def. Pluhowsky, 226-224
