Finals Set at 2024 PBA Tournament of Champions
The finals are set at the 2024 PBA Tournament of Champions — and the five finalists eerily resemble the last year's championship round field.
Anthony Simonsen, EJ Tackett, Matt Ogle and Jason Sterner all made the championship round at this event in 2023 and all return to compete for a PBA major championship, the final major title of the 2024 season.
Instead of Jason Belmonte, who defeated all four to win the title a year ago, Marshall Kent continues his resurgent season and rounds out the stepladder finals field at historic AMF Riviera Lanes in Fairlawn, Ohio.
The finals will take place Sunday, April 28 at 1 p.m. Eastern on FOX.
Simonsen took the lead during Thursday’s second round of match play and never relinquished it. He averaged more than 225 across 42 games on the 40-foot Don Johnson pattern.
“I executed really well at a high quality throughout the week,” Simonsen said. “My biggest thing was just trying to hunker down in the back half of the game, where it's really easy to turn 240-250 into 210-220 in a hurry. I think it just goes back to the scoring pace. When you know it's probably not going to take an eight-bagger to win a game, it makes it a little easier to accept not striking, knowing that you can still throw a five-bagger and bowl 220 and still have a really good opportunity to win.”
As the No. 1 seed, Simonsen will make his fourth TOC finals in the past five years, earning a top-two seed each time. However, he has yet to hoist the trophy.
A win on Sunday — on historic lanes 27-28 — would be the sixth major championship of the 27-year-old’s career.
“It's just a special feeling, walking through the doors and seeing ‘Through these doors walk the world’s finest bowlers.’ With the history that's been in this building for many years and hopefully many years to come, it's a special place,” Simonsen said. “It is truly the best of the best (in the field). You look around, everyone is a champion regardless of its national or regional title. You know that everybody in this field has a special achievement with them.
Tackett will also seek to win a sixth career major title on Sunday, just one week after winning his fifth.
Mere hours after winning the PBA World Championship last Sunday, Tackett said he and his wife Natalie made the trip from Detroit to Fairlawn with their four-month-old son, Eddie III (Tripp). Tackett then bowled the TOC practice session on Monday at 3 p.m. and Elite League matches at 6 p.m.
“I think one of the best things that's helped a little bit is being a dad,” Tackett said of managing the short turnaround. “It's easier to get back into it when (bowling) is not the most important thing anymore. The most important thing was hanging out with Tripp and spending that time with him. It means more to me right now than it does to him, but I know someday that will change.”
Tackett, who has won this season’s most recent two titles, will make his eighth championship round appearance this season in 13 title events. The last player to win three straight titles was Johnny Petraglia in 1971.
“It's been an incredible year. The last two seasons have been just absolutely unbelievable. I have bowled the best of my career, by far,” Tackett said. “I just hope to keep riding the wave, bowling well, getting on TV shows and giving myself opportunities to win championships. That's all you can do. I've done well in the last two shows to win them. I bowled some of the best I ever have in my career on those two shows. Hopefully Sunday I can do that again.”
Ogle earned the No. 3 seed for the second consecutive year.
“This place likes my ball roll and I like bowling here,” Ogle said. “I’m happy to be in the position that I am. I’d like to be the No. 1 seed, obviously I was there for a minute, but we’ll see what happens on Sunday.
The top 43 players in competition points this season will earn exemptions for the 2025 PBA Tour, and the TOC is the season's last event which awards points. Unofficially, Matt Sanders and Kyle Sherman bowled their way into 2025 exemptions with their performance this week.
Also unofficially, if Ogle wins two matches on Sunday and advances to the title match, he will qualify for the PBA Playoffs, which begins next weekend in Arlington, Wash. and features the top 16 players in 2024 competition points.
If Ogle wins two matches, he will also qualify for the PBA Tour Finals, knocking out Packy Hanrahan.
“It's on the back of my mind,” Ogle said. “I've got to focus on the present. I can't worry about what's going to happen or what can happen. If I get there, I get there; if I don't, I don't. I could have bowled better at the beginning of the year and I won't have to worry about it now.”
Sterner can also qualify for the playoffs with a win in his opening match against Kent.
Andrew Anderson and AJ Johnson are the players currently in the playoffs whose positions are in jeopardy.
If Sterner wins his opening match against Kent, Sterner would leapfrog both Anderson and Johnson in points, eliminating Johnson from the playoffs; if Ogle wins two matches and advances to the title match, he would pass both Anderson and Johnson in points, eliminating Johnson from the playoffs.
If Sterner wins his opening match and Ogle advances to the title match, they will both make the playoffs, eliminating Anderson and Johnson.
Chris Via entered the TOC 17th in points and will make the playoffs by virtue of his 10th place finish at the TOC. Justin Knowles, who missed the pre-tournament qualifier cut for the TOC, dropped out of the playoffs.
Kent will be the lone new face in the championship round this year, though he did earn the No. 8 seed for the expanded, 17-player stepladder in 2021.
Despite leading the opening rounds and ultimately qualifying fourth, Kent said he battled issues with his physical game and spare shooting all week. Kent made 84% of his spare attempts, five percent below the field average, according to Lanetalk. He made 89% of his 57 10-pin attempts, below the field average of 95%.
“This morning I got to the point where I got angry enough to start bowling better, and I tried not to let that feeling go away,” Kent said. “Last week during Cheetah Championship match play, I got to the right level of frustration, (but) there have been times I've tried to bowl pissed off and it hasn't worked out. I don't really think there's a way to do it on purpose.”
Kent said having his mom and girlfriend in the crowd for almost the entirety of the week has been an enormous boost to his mental strength.
“I couldn't do without them. It’s as simple as that,” Kent said. “You have to have a good support system and people that can pick you up when you have a bad day. When you personally don't feel like you can keep going, they push you and say, ‘You can keep doing this, you're doing great’ and reaffirm that you're doing the right thing. Sometimes you need to hear that. To have them out here, it means the world to me.”
Kent will face Sterner in the opening match. Both players, and Ogle, will seek their first career major title, not to mention 2024 postseason ramifications.
Sterner said he looks forward to the opportunity to compete against the four “heavy hitters” and to see if he learned anything from last year. He lost in the opening match to Belmonte, 231-217.
“I didn't hate what my gameplan was last year because I had (Belmonte) on the ropes. Then I made two bad shots to let him back in, and him being who he is, he shut the door,” Sterner said. “I can't assume the (lane conditions) are going to be close to last year, but I’ve got to think the same characteristics are going to show up.”
In the position round, Sterner outlasted a spirited effort from Eric Jones and Brad Miller.
The 19-year-old Jones, who finished fifth in last week’s World Championship, needed to beat Sterner by 47 pins to usurp him for the No. 5 seed. Jones fired 278, with a 2-7 conversion in the eighth frame as his lone blemish.
Miller, competing next door in the No. 7-8-seed match, trailed Jones by just two pins. Entering his own 10th frame, Miller had a possible max score of 280 — which meant he could have tied Jones with three strikes in the 10th frame.
In his 10th frame, Sterner broke up a split, converted a 4-pin and struck on his fill ball to shut out Jones by five pins. If Sterner’s pin-count in the 10th frame had been five pins less, there could have been a three-way tie.
After Sterner secured the spot, Miller ostensibly threw in the towel. The 34-year-old, who entered the TOC in 80th place in points, needed to make the title match to earn an exempt spot for 2025.
The stepladder finals for the 2024 season’s final major championship will begin at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday on FOX.
The final rounds of the PBA Elite League, featuring the Akron Atom Splitters vs. Las Vegas High Rollers and Portland Lumberjacks vs. Lucky Strike L.A. X, will take place on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on FS1.
Full TOC standings are available here.
TOC Schedule
AMF Riviera Lanes | Fairlawn, OH
All times listed in Eastern
Friday, April 26
6pm — Hall of Fame induction ceremonies (free to watch on BowlTV)
Saturday, April 17
9am — Pro-Am
11am — Pro-Am
4pm on FS1 — PBA Elite League Round 14 matches (L.A. X vs. Portland; Akron vs. Las Vegas)
Tickets
Sunday, April 28
1pm on FOX — TOC stepladder finals
Tickets
More information on the PBA Tournament of Champions is available here.