Women’s bowling took a big step forward this past weekend. A few years back the PWBA was pretty much canceled and the women were no longer on TV. This year they started introducing them back at the beginning of the season, showing their title matches in the middle of the men’s games.
This past weekend was the Women’s Series Showdown where 6 women competed in the finals. They used a new scoring method, The Johnny Petraglia Scoring System, and bowled 3 women at a time. The format of the bowling was very confusing for me at home, as well as the women bowling. You can see at one point, Jodi Woessner looks to her right and points at herself to make sure it is her turn. The women did not bowl on the same lanes as each other, they each had their very own lane.
The six women were broken into two squads of three. The winner of each squad moved onto the finals, the highest score (worst score) was eliminated, and the other three moved onto a wildcard round. After the first squad, it appeared that Carloyn Dorin-Ballard was going to be eliminated with a score of 17. Lucky for her, Michele Feldman struggled and ended up shooting an 18, giving Carloyn a chance in the wildcard.
In the wildcard round, Carolyn made a great change and tied Macpherson with a score of 12 each. They then went into a sudden death roll off where Carloyn rolled 3 strikes to finally knock Macpherson out.
Carolyn shot the last 8 strikes in her wildcard game, then 3 in the roll off. She then threw the first 9 strikes in the finals (10 would have been a perfect game), giving her 20 strikes in a row on television. The previous record for the PBA was 18 in row. This was an amazing feat, and I was happy to have watched it.
The final standings:
- Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (Keller, TX), $25,000
- Jodi Woessner (Oregon, OH), $12,000
- Stefanie Nation (Arling, TX), $5,000
- Wndy Macpherson (Henderson, NV), $3,000
- Miss Bellinder (Fullerton, CA), $3,000
- Michele Feldman (Auburn, NY), $2,000
