Earlier in the week, Kovalova hit a 297 in the doubles event and that helped her along the way to setting a new championship record for the 18-game All Events of 3884, beating the old record by 17 pins. she won the gold medal, as reported earlier.

Today, in the best-of-three game Masters rounds she faced team-mate Oleksandra Iakunina in her first match and won over two games, 229 and 215.

In the semi-finals she was drawn against her best friend from Moscow, Maria Bulanova. That match went the distance  but 2-1 to Kovalova.

Girl Masters medalists

In the final she not only faced her opponent but also a huge crowd packed into the bowling center as it was to be against Danish favorite Pernille Rasmussen. Crowd support seemed to encourage the Ukrainian as she won

Boy Masters medalists

the first game, 258-192, then got even better to keep the match at two games, taking the second game, 289-191.

Asked what she had for lunch to inspire such high scores, she just replied: “An apple and a cup of tea.”

Three weeks ago Kovalova was runner-up for the Samaranch Trophy at the European Women’s Masters in Barcelona and the following week played a youth tournament in Moscow, Russia. How did she fare? “I won.” Soon she will be heading for Bangkok, Thailand for the World Youth Championships. “I really want to win the Masters there,” she added.

The favorite to take the boys’ Masters title was Filip Wilhelmsson from Sweden, the number one seed after the All Events total. He started out the day well but fell to Dominic Buchmann of Germany in the semi-finals, winning the first game, 190-164, but going down in the following two, 207-205 and 239-195.

Nicola Pongolini of Italy and Dutchman Jord van Weeren lost their semi-final matches, so had to be content with bronze medals and the tussle for gold saw Buchmann against Sweden’s Jesper Svensson.

It was kind of an anti-climax after the high scores of the girl’s final but Svensson got the two wins he needed, 207-175 and 188-186. Svensson commented: “At the beginning of the week I just couldn’t get the strikes I needed. I just had lots of 9-spares, so I didn’t think I could score enough to make the Masters.” He made it in 14th place and had to fight his way through five rounds before winning the gold medal.

Does this gold give Svensson a ticket to the World Youth Championships in Bangkok? “No, there are four other boys going there. But I hope to see some more gold medals for Sweden.”

Minenko, Kulseng, Talpa and Van Geel

pins to be the number one seed for the single game play-offs. Sanna Pasenen of Finland took third place with

Wegner, Crawley, Pasenen and Kovalova

1281 and fourth was England’s Verity Crawley, 1279. Crawley had started her six-games with a 300, the first of her career and the only perfect game of these championships.

For the boys, it was Czech Marek Talpa at the top of the leader board on 1387 with Alexander Minenko of Russia the runner-up o 1340. Jeroen van Geel of The Netherlands placed third, 1333, and fourth into the play-offs was Norway’s Oyvin Kulseng.

The format for the play-offs was one game semi-finals and finals, top seed against low.

The semi-finals for the girls saw Daria Kovalova against Verity Crawley and Jenny Wegner playing Sanna Pasenen.

It was a somewhat unexpected victory for Crawley over Kovalova, 191-186, and Wegner had an easier match against Pasenen, comig through 186-129.

In the boys semis, it was truly close as Minenko beat Van Geel, 215-213, and an easier run for Kulseng, taking out Talpa, 228-168.

In front of a tightly packed concourse from a huge crowd, both finals were run simultaneously.

Verity continued her giant-killing act by defeating Swedish favorite Wegner, 238-222, by striking out in the tenth frame and Kulseng gave Norway the boys gold by starting with six strikes to set up an unassailable lead over Minenko, 222-171.

ALL EVENTS:

Daria Kovalova of Ukraine set a championship record, amassing 3994 for her 18-game all event from six games each in doubles, team and singles.

All Events medalists

There was no record for the boys, but Sweden’s Filip Wilhelmsson topped the tables to take the gold medal with 3826, 14 pins over second-placed Oyvin Kulseng of Norway for silver. The bronze medal was won by Markus Bergendorff of Denmark with 3802.

Kovalova’s gold medal was followed by silver for Jenny Wegner of Sweden and Verity Crawley of England took the bronze.

The event now progresses to the Masters, a best of three game stint for the top 24 players in All Events.

Full information and results on www.eyc2012.eu

Marek Talpa

So the players lined up for the second and final Singles squad know that they have to average over 231 if they want to emerge number one seed for tomorrow’s play-offs for medals. The current fourth place is a 214 average.

Alexander Minenko

Sergi Montanya from tiny Catalonia heads the second squad’s scores with 255, three pins ahead of Lithuania’s Lukas Pereckas, who started with six strikes, had a six-split, three more strikes before a final spare. Had it been a strike instead of that split in the seventh frame he might have posted the championships’ hgh game which currently stands at 277 from Norway’s Mathias Reinertsen.

A 246 from Belgium’s Lars Wouters holds third place and a 237 tie between Thomas Moeller Petersen of Greece and Joshua Schuurman of The Netherlands vie for fourth place.

Strange how all four Dutch boys have first names beginning with ‘J’.

Now we have a new leading trio with 486 the leading score after two games.

Christopher Sloan from Ireland is the pacesetter, rolling a handsome 253 second game to hold a 32 point buffer over second placed Englishman Ben Howson-Johnstone, 239/454. Ido Sharat from Israel puts his foot in the door to hold third, 245/452, whilst Pereckas slips from second to fourth, 194/446.

462 is the target to top the squad one score of 1387 and only Sloan is currently on course to do that.

Halfway through the final squad now and we have a new high individual game as Finland’s Niko Kurppa bowls a 278, raising the ante by a single pin.

However, that was not enough to take over the squad lead as Israeli Sharet improves from third to top with 226/678, Sloan slipping to second, 189/675. Pereckas maintains his place in the leading quartet, 226/672 and newcomer to the frame is Oyvin Kulseng of Norway, 266/662.

Kurppa’s 278 brings him to fifth place on 658.

Jeroen van Geel

Now Kulseng takes over as the fourth game draws to a close, shooting 245 for a 907 series, the only player to surpass 900 over four in this squad. Talpa had 943 at this stage in squad one.

Oyvin Kulseng

Sloan holds second, 220/895, and Sharet takes over from Pereckas in third, 203/881. A new fourth place for Scott Connelly of Scotland.

Talpa now looks pretty safe to be number one seed but the current top three look good to take spots two to four.

The penultimate game saw Kulseng clear of the chasing pack after a 241/1148 score brings him within seven points of meeting the target set by Talpa, but the Norwegian has to bowl a 240 in his final game to grab that number one seed spot.

Scotland’s Connelly graduates from fourth to second after 226/1100 and it is a welcome back to Pereckas into third, 227/1099. Sloan downgrades to fourth place, 199/1094.

All four are above the fourth place set in squad one, an average of 214.

Kulseng’s bid to be number one dropped well short of the target as he had a miserable 177 sixth game and that dropped him down to fourth place in the overall singles’ scores. Bad news but also good news because he does qualify for tomorrow’s play-offs but as fouth seed has to face number one seed Marek Talpa, perhaps the surprise leader of the event. Talpa hails from Olomouc in the Czech Republic.

Perhaps not quite so much of a surprise is the second place finish of Russian Alexander Minenko. He came down the home straight with a 248 and that bumped him up to 1340.

Dutchman Jeroen van Geel booked his place in the final foursome with a 235 finish so he will be up against Minenko in the semi-finals tomorrow

Full tournament information, news and pictures on www.eyc2012.eu

This is the time that the going gets tough and the tough get going.

As current leaders, the spotlight shines on the Swedish quartet as action commences with the fourth of the six games that will result in the top four teams qualifying for this evenings semi-finals and final.

Sweden, England, Denmark and Finland are the four teams currently in those four places but these are just spring chicken of the bowling world and maybe the pressure will be too much for some, that remains to be seen.

The English were in fiery mood for such an early hour and shot 823 for the opener, whilst the Swedes had a lacklustre 763, so the English are now only eleven pins behind the leaders, 3125-3114.

Denmark, trying hard, still retain third place after 784/3033 and the Finns remain fourth 759/2997.

The Russians are standing on the step and knocking on the door, asking for admittance into the Top 4 Club, just 20 pins aback of the Finns on 2977.

As at times yesterday, to look for the high individual score each game your eyes have to wander down to the Combined section where players not assigned to teams are put together. This fourth game honor belongs to Daria Kavalova of Ukraine with a 230.

Russia’s plea to be admitted to the top four was accepted as they now have a five-game score of 3700 even and take over fourth position from Finland. The Finns dropped to fifth with a low game of 688 to let the Russians in and thanks to their Marie Bulanova who hit 221 they now lead the Finns by 15 pins.

A truly fantastic 871 game from the Danes for a 3904 total, we think the highest girls’ team game so far, puts them in pole position, overtaking Sweden and England.

Now England are number two with 3896 and the Swedes have dropped to third on 3851. Quite a shuffle.

A 268 tops the individual scores in game five and that comes from the dainty hands of Turkey’s Ayse Akar.

With intense encouragement, at times almost lifting the rafters of the pristine Lovvang Bowl here in Aalborg, the pressure was really beginning to tell for the tournament leaders as they progressed through the final game.

Fouls, missed spares and plenty of missed single pins showed how much of a load they were all carrying and as England were now playing Denmark and Sweden were against Finland on the final lap the pressure was all the more telling.

Going into the last five frames of the final game, it was Denmark still leading with 4300. England dropped to third (4265) as Sweden came back with 4289 and the Finns regained fourth place on  4089, the Russians dropping back to 4018. So the fight is really on for fourth place and barring disasters in the home straight the other three teams should be safe for the play-offs.

Come the tenth frame and it was really neck-and-neck between England and Denmark for the honor of being in pole position, although both had definitely qualified for the play-offs. The final balls of the tenth frame decreed that the English should have that honor and they totaled 4647 to beat the Danish quartet by 12 pins.

Sweden came to the post in third place with 4614 and Finland held off the Russians for fourth, 4455.

The England team with coaches and Mrs White

“I am so proud of my girls,” said Mrs Pat White, chair of the British Tenpin Bowling Association. “To win the gold medals in the doubles and now qualify as top seeds for the play-offs is incredible.”

The line-ups for the semi-finals this evening will be England versus Finland and Denmark against Sweden. There are bronze medals for both losers in the semi-finals.

As aforementioned, to look for the best individual scores it is best to go down the results sheet to the Combined section. And there, for game six there is a brilliant 297 from Ukraine’s Daria Kovalova, perhaps nervously just getting a seven-count with the final ball.

BOYS TEAM – BLOCK 2

Sweden (2518), Denmark (2382), Russia (2376) and Finland (2361) sit in those prestigious first four places of the tournament after the first three-game block, with Norway on the cusp with 2323.

The top four after the following three games will advance to this evening’s semi-finals and the winners thereafter through to the final, all one-game matches.

The high boys’ game as we stand is 277 from Norway’s Mathias Reinertsen.

Sweden carried on their merry way with Emil Nilsson leading off with a 258 and the team putting together a 920, which is only 14 pins short of the all-time record, set by Russia way back in 2009.

Quite a juxtaposition of team standings as now although Sweden retain pole with 3507, the Netherlands move up into second place on 3272, Greece come into third, shooting 3272 and Finland remain fourth with 3233.

The city of Aalborg is officially closed today, the day before Good Friday is a holiday in these parts, but the action gets hotter and hotter in Norresundby’s Lovvang Bowl and the Swede’s are scorching the lanes, on course to beat the championship record of 5175 for six team games, set by The Netherlands in Munich, Germany last year.

The Swedes need to average 863 for each game to attain that feat and after four of the six games have an average of 876.

Game five gleaned them 852 for a 4359 total, first place as is their accustomed position and status quo for the others as The Netherlands take second spot with 4099 and Greece third, 4010. Finland trail fourth once more on 3995 and they could have a fight on their hands with Denmark just 20 points back, itching to get into the top four places from the final game.

Top individual score in game five came from Filip Wilhelmsson of Sweden with 257.

Swedish boys

The focus on game five went on the the Finland and Denmark matches as it became pin for pin after four frames then the Danes forged ahead by 27 pins. Finland brought the scores back to around level pegging by the sixth frame and then the Danes opened up a small gap. Going into the tenth frame it looked to be going Denmark’s way as the score sheet showed them with 4670 to Finland’s 4607, but the Finns had two players working on doubles and the Danes with only two having strikes to work with.

The confrontation ended in Denmark’s favor, ousting the Finns from the top four qualifying places, 4772 – 4729.

The spotlight went back to the Swedes. They needed 817 in the last game to beat the Championship six-game record of 5175 and 848 to beat the three-game record of 2620.

In their tenth frame, desperately seeking 817, Wilhelmsson posted 207, Andersson 187, so off the pace, then Svensson’s 199 leaving Nilsson to a target of 224. Working on four strikes, Nilsson hit a 9-spare and strike for 216, so the target of 5175 still stands, but the Swedes lead the standings with 5168.

So tonight’s play-offs will be Sweden as number one seed with 5168; The Netherlands second, 4821; Greece third, 4782 and Denmark fourth 4772.

The semi-final matches will be Sweden versus Denmark and The Netherlands against Greece. The semi-final losers will both be awarded bronze medals.

The boys’ top individual All Events scores over the 12 games, six each in Doubles and Team, show Filip Wilhelmsson of Sweden with 2696 (224 average) and team-mate Emil Nilsson second with 2611. Third place is currently held by Denmark’s Markus Bergendorff on 2594.

SEMI-FINALS
Sweden versus Denmark for the boys and Sweden versus Denmark for the girls.

The other matches were Dutch boys playing Greece and the girls had England against Finland.

The first team to clinch a place in the finals was the Danish girls, beating neighbors Sweden by the handsome margin of 56 pins, 790 – 734.

The Danes will face Finland for the gold medal, the Finns having defeated top seeded England, 845 – 780.

The boys were a little later finishing their semi-final but it all ended up with Denmark beating Sweden 816 – 758, and the Netherlands taking out Greece in a match of a closer kind, 823 – 810.

Therefore, to the great pleasure of the population, Denmark face opponents in both finals and have chances of two gold medals, the boys playing Denmark versus The Netherlands.

So there will be dancing in the streets of Aalborg tonight if two golds are won.

England and Sweden will be presented with bronze medals in the girls’ division, Greece and Sweden in the boys’.

FINALS
Both the boys’ and girls’ finals ran at the same time, the boys of lanes 5/6, the girls over on 13/14.

Denmark, shooting for double gold, fell foul of the Dutch as their boys established a healthy lead to take the pressure off, but in the girls’ final it was far too close to call by the time the sixth frame had ended.

In the eighth frame both teams had two girls with open frames and the Finns had just a nine point advantage.
For the men. the Dutch were enjoying just under a 100 point lead at this juncture.

So it was just a coast home for the flying Dutchmen, outpointing their Danish opponents, xxx – 764, to take the gold medal and leave the Danes with silver. The Dutch had only four ‘open’ frames in their final, including one split, with two single pin misses, and that talent showed in their great total. The Danes had eight opens.

Dutch anchorman Jeroen van Geel rounded things off nicely with a personal 262.

It was down to a four pin advantage to Finland come the ninth frame of the girls’ final and the tenth was truly a nail-biter. 170 from the Danish lead, 172 from the Finn. 182-143 from the seconds. 151-172 from the third players. The Danes finished with 662, leaving the Finnish anchor needing just five pins to seal the gold for her country after hitting a strike with her first ball. She made it a double and 9 for 200 and the gold is theirs, but it came with just a 687-662 victory. A real squeaker.

                                                   Team gold medalists.

A quick comment from Finland’s girls’ team coach, Piritta Maja brought forth the comment: “I was very confident when I saw how the pair of lanes was for the final. They were difficult and very different than the lanes where we played the semi-final. But I knew we had girls with a lot of routine so even on tough conditions I knew that they could shoot their spares. And it was the spares that really mattered tonight. We like playing when the matches are tight, we are used to playing like that back home in Finland, so we have experienced team players.”

Dutch coach Nico Thienpondt said of the big win in the boys’ final: “It is never easy. We started well and the Danes started badly, but the game is never over until the last ball, so we stayed sharp until the end. This is bowling, you can be top seed and then lose your match. We did well today, especially the first games on the oil, so I am very satisfied with our boys.”

Tomorrow (Friday) sees the two squads of Boys’ Singles, the girls have the day off.

The Swedish quartet

Denmark, always in the hunt this year and holding two bronze medals from the Girl’s Doubles, shot a classy 848 for third place with their Martin Pedersen contributing 253. Star ‘two-hander’ Markus Bergendorff, son of famous international coach Goran Bergendorff, leads the Danish scores with 244.
The top six teams managed to average 200-plus for this first three-game block. The second three-game series takes place tomorrow for the total scores over six games.

The current records stand at 934  for the team sngle game, held by Russia; 2620 for three games, held by Sweden; 5175 for six games, held by The Netherlands.

Although Reinertsen kept up his strikefest, the rest of the Norwegian team failed to back him up and they slumped to sixth place with 1600 after the results of game two were posted. New leaders are Denmark with 1710, knocking Sweden off their perch by 21 pins for 1689 and Belgium rise to the occasion, jumping into third place with an 874 game, the highest of the day, and 1679 overall.

Six teams are still averaging 200.

When the dust settled after the third and final game of the day (Dust – At Lovvang Bowl? You must be joking!) for the boys saw the all familiar situation of Scandinavians at the top of the table, Sweden leading with 2587, followed by Finland, 2520, and Denmark losing a little ground to be third with 2467. The Dutch claim fourth place with 2467.

Star of our show today is Finland’s Juuso Rikkola who amassed 756 over his three games to top the individual scores, happily striking with games of 213, 278 and 265, his 278 being the high game of the day, pipping Norway’s Reinertsen by just one pin.

The boys can now put their feet up for the rest of the day, or do whatever boys get up to in their spare time, as they do not return to the lanes until Thursday afternoon to bowl their second six-game block.

This afternoon it is the turn of the girls to turn on some magic.

GIRLS TEAMS
Many of the young ladies set off at a merry trot and there were a few 200-plus games in the mix, the best a 265 from Andrea Hansen of Norway, having to bowl in a make-up team as the Norwegians only have three girl players in the event. Her 265 is the highest female game played in the tournament so far.

The team with the mostest after the first game is Sweden, following well in the footsteps of their male counterparts who led the field in the Boy’s Team this morning. The Swedish girls were the only quartet to break 800 and they did that in style, grossing 825.

Swedish Girls

There is a break, maybe temporary, in the Scandinavian domination of the event this year (and many past) as England hold second place with 778 and their neighbors Scotland in third, 748.

But this is just the first of six games, three this afternoon and another three tomorrow morning, so scoring is bound to improve for those suffering at the moment in the lower regions of the standings.

The four English girls were 50-plus pins ahead of their Danish opponents about a third of the way through the second game and then just opened the door and let them through, finishing 21 in arrears and dropping from second place to third.

The cream of the crop was still Sweden, sitting comfortably on 1595, just five pins off a 200 average, holding a 68 point buffer over second-placed Denmark (1527), thereby getting Scandinavia back into the top two places and Finland are mounting a challenge should the English weaken, being in fourth place on 1493.

Top girl after two games is Roosa Lunden from Finland on 456. She is the daughter of well-known international Reija Lunden.
The third game saw the English get their act together but not enough to catch the Swedes who had built a massive 71 pin lead over England, 2362 – 2291.
Denmark dropped back a couple of points and now lie in third place (2249) and Finland hold at fourth (2238).

The girls will open the fray at 09:00 Thursday for their final three team games and the Swedes just smile and say “Catch us if you can.”

Sweden’s team coach Peter Ljung, himself a well established international competitor and with an AMF World Cup title, commented: “With more players on the lanes we had better chances of course, but we had to solve a few problems that are out there on the lanes. Once we got setttled after a couple of frames with the boys this morning we were pretty well OK. The girls were right on from the beginning this afternoon. It was just the transition we had problems with from time to time. Some of the players, like Jenny (Wegner), could have done better today. She had two open frames in the second and third games at the end of the games, but she’s still 68 over, so I can’t really complain.”

When we take a glance at the all events standings, now a total of nine games from the six of the doubles and the current three team, the top three boys are: Filip Wilhelmsson, Sweden 1977; Markus Bergendorff, Denmark 1973 and Juuso Rikkola, Finland 1961.

Hannah Frost of England still leads the girl’s nine-game scores with 1889 (209 average), followed by the Ukraine’s Daria Kovalova (1873) and Jenny Wegner of Sweden (1868).

Medals are awarded for the top three scores after doubles, team and singles events, a total of 18 games.

Full tournament information and standings on: www.eyc2012.eu.

ANOTHER USBC OPEN Championships is under way. Let’s take a look back 50 years, when the event was called the ABC Tournament, and the pros were given the Classic Division.

Early ABC leaders had tried to discourage professional bowling. Long-time Secretary A.L. Langtry often complained about those bowlers he called “pot hunters.” The 1922 World Classic Tournament was never repeated because of Langtry’s opposition.

The ABC Tournament also had something called the Alleyman Rule. That meant a team could have only one player who earned the majority of his income from bowling. The rule included adult pinboys, and even bartenders who worked in a bowling center.

Bowling leaders finally dropped the Alleyman Rule. By the 1950s, there was a growing number of “super teams” around the country. Some of them, like the Budweisers of St. Louis, were paid sizeable salaries just to bowl.

The Professional Bowlers Assn. was formed in 1958. Professionalism had become established. At the 1960 ABC Convention, delegates approved a new Classic Division for the annual tournament. Teams with two or more pros would now be required to bowl in the Classic.

A “pro” was precisely defined. The first part of the definition said you had to average over 190 for the past two seasons — remember, scoring was tougher then. The second part listed six categories, spelling out various ways you might earn money through your bowling skill. If you carried that 190-plus average, and fell into one of the six categories, you were a pro.

The Classic Division format was new. After rolling the traditional three games each in Team, Doubles and Singles, the bowlers would return for a second Team series. The six-game total would decide the Classic Team championship. Classic All-Events would thus be based on the 12 games.

ABC Secretary Frank K. Baker said the longer format was a truer test for the better bowler. He also admitted that the extra Team squad would bring in more spectator revenue.

Bowlers greeted the Classic Division with great enthusiasm. Besides the pros, the division was open to any team that thought they were good enough. Out of 6,300 teams signing up for the 1961 ABC, 80 entered the Classic Division. Each Classic team was treated to an extensive write-up in the tournament program, complete with pictures.

The 1961 ABC was held in Detroit, at the sparkling, new Cobo Hall. The Classic bowlers did not have separate squads, but were part of the regular tournament schedule. On March 8, the first two Classic teams bowled: Amster-Kirtz of Akron, and Sullivan Furniture of Detroit.

The Sullivans were the former Pfeiffer team, 1959 ABC champs. They took the early Classic lead. A few days later, the Budweisers arrived, still looking for their first ABC Team title. The Buds moved into first place.

The Buds’ two appearances drew large crowds. But something was wrong with the Classic Division. The scores were too low. The Buds shot only 5887 for their six games. The Detroit Strohs later took the lead, but still couldn’t crack 200 per man.

The tournament moved on. Veterans Don Ellis and Joe Kristof won the first Classic Doubles championship with 1331. Earl Johnson’s 733 took the Classic Singles. Detroit’s own Bob Brayman, a member of the 1960 Team champs, won the Classic All Events with 1963.

Late in the schedule, Brentwood Bowl of San Francisco edged past the Strohs when anchorman Joe Jacques carried two Brooklyn strikes in the final frame. The Brentwoods won with 5983 — still under 200 per man.

The ABC pronounced the Classic Division a success. But the next year, only 58 teams entered it. The initial euphoria had worn off. Many of the borderline teams had also decided they just didn’t belong with the big dogs.

Later editions of the Classic Division featured some exciting bowling. However, the move away from big team bowling doomed the division. The ABC junked the Classic Division after the 1979 tournament.

- – - – -

Check out “Dr. Jake’s Bowling history Blog” at: http://bowlinghistory.wordpress.com

The concert will cap BPAA’s International Bowl Expo, an event that already includes the outdoor finals of the U.S. Women’s Open on Virginia Street, under the historic Reno arch.

Best known for his work with the Eagles, Henley is expected to entertain concertgoers with Eagles hits such as “Witchy Woman,” “Desperado,” “Best of My Love” and “Hotel California,” along with solo favorites like “All She Wants to Do Is Dance,” “The End of Innocence,” “Dirty Laundry” and “The Boys of Summer.”

The Eagles, members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, have sold more than 120 million albums worldwide, won six Grammy Awards, had five No. 1 singles, and produced and six No. 1 albums. In his solo career, Henley has sold more than 10 million albums worldwide and has had eight Top-40 singles, won two Grammys and garnered five MTV Video Awards.

In a separate event prior to the concert, Bowl Expo attendees who purchase a Club Xpo ticket will gather at 6:30 p.m. in the Reno Ballroom for food, drinks and another opportunity to network with their peers. Attendees with Club Xpo tickets will be able to exchange them for prime seating at the Reno Events Center for the Henley concert. A ticket exchange will be held at Bowl Expo earlier in the week to determine assigned seats.

The 2012 International Bowl Expo runs June 24-29 at the Silver Legacy Resort Casino (headquarters hotel). The Expo’s trade show, featuring more than 300 exhibitors covering nearly 200,000 square feet of floor space, will be open June 27-28 at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center.

Bowl Expo’s theme in 2012 is “United We Bowl as We Salute Our Heroes,” and features former Space Shuttle Commander Capt. Mark Kelly, Capt. Scott O’Grady, and Lt. Col. Kevin Sweeney as keynote speakers. There also are more than 40 educational seminars scheduled.

For more information or to register, log on to www.bowlexpo.com or click here to access the NEW online registration book.

The last of eight PBA World Series of Bowling finals will air at 1 p.m. Eastern. First prize is $35,000.

Belmonte, who came into the 2011-12 season with one title (won during his PBA Rookie of the Year season in 2008-09), will try to become a four-time titlist when he faces Duke, Mike Scroggins and Mike DeVaney in the four-player eliminator finals of the Elite Players event.

While the PBA Tournament of Champions concludes the regular season the following week in Las Vegas, this tournament may have a strong impact on the Player of the Year race, not to mention some other prestigious PBA honors.

If Belmonte wins and can then win the PBA Player of the Year voting, he would join Mike Aulby, Tommy Jones and Chris Barnes as the fourth player to win both Rookie and Player of the Year honors. He also would be the first non-American player to accomplish that feat.

Belmonte will make a record-tying fifth World Series of Bowling television appearance, matching Sean Rash’s mark, also set during the 2011-12 WSOB. The Australian star previously won the Chameleon Open and the GEICO Shark Open, and finished fourth in the PBA World Championship and in the Mark Roth-Marshall Holman PBA Doubles Championship (with partner Pete Weber).

Duke, on the other hand, made a bold statement in the Player of the Year race this past Sunday when he won the Xtra Frame Tour Dick Weber PBA Playoffs presented by Hammer for his third title of the season and the 37th of his career, moving him into sole possession of third place on the PBA career titles list.

Duke won his 36th title in the Xtra Frame Detroit Open presented by Track, which tied him with Pete Weber on the titles list. Walter Ray Williams Jr. (47 titles) and Earl Anthony (43) are 1-2 on that list.

Duke, the 1994 and 2000 PBA Player of the Year, has a chance to become the fourth player in PBA history to win POY honors more than twice. Williams (seven times), Anthony (six) and Roth (four) are the POY leaders.

This week’s spoilers could be Scroggins or DeVaney. Scroggins in an eight-time PBA Tour champion who last won the 2010 Etonic Don Johnson Eliminator in Columbus, Ohio. DeVaney, a two-time titlist, last won the Scorpion Open during the 2009 World Series of Bowling in Allen Park, Mich.

Pending the outcome of the Elite Players Championship, Osku Palermaa and Mike Fagan will be factors in the POY chase heading into the TOC. Each has won two each titles this season, including a major. Weber, with his U.S. Open win, and Rash, with his record-setting WSOB performance, also are POY dark horses.

A PBA Elite Players Championship pre-event show will be webcast at no cost on pba.com’s Xtra Frame online bowling channel starting today, with a follow-up post-game show immediately following Sunday’s ESPN telecast. To subscribe to Xtra Frame, visit pba.com and click on the Xtra Frame logo. The monthly subscription rate is $7.99; a full-year subscription is $64.99.

Xtra Frame will provide complete coverage of all qualifying and match play rounds of the PBA Tournament of Champions, beginning Monday. The Tournament of Champions concludes with live ESPN coverage on Sunday, April 15, at 1 p.m. Eastern.