John Marsala Leads 2024 PBA50 South Shore Classic
Hammond, Ind. — Last month, John Marsala won his sixth PBA50 Regional Tour title, and he hopes to add a third career PBA50 Tour title this week.
The left-hander has been a model of consistency. On Tuesday, he rolled a perfect game to get to sixth place after the first day of qualifying at the 2024 PBA50 South Shore Classic. On Wednesday, he started off with a 288 ending up with the same seven-game block total of 1,628 as he did on Tuesday to take over first place at the end of qualifying.
Marsala feels comfortable inside Olympia Lanes having finished in 10th place last year and cashing in seasons prior. With that level of comfort comes confidence, which he feels he had been lacking the last couple of weeks. He took advantage of a little more hook on Wednesday, and he was making spares, as opposed to his struggle, at times, last week in Jonesboro.
“Coming in as the leader builds a ton of confidence,” the St. Louis native said. “I have been able to qualify pretty much every week, but getting past the qualifying rounds is where I have been struggling this year. I need to make sure I am hitting my target and try to ride the wave.”
Marsala is known on the PBA50 Tour for making some delicious smoked meat while at tournament stops, but he admits he left his smoker at home because he is focusing on doing what he has got to do on the lanes. He holds a 43-pin lead over Troy Stus and Tom Hess. Chris Barnes is in fourth place followed by John Janawicz and Dino Castillo, who was leading on Tuesday, tied in fifth place.
The final player to make the cut in 32nd place is Russell Hunt at +169. All qualifying pins will carry over into the four games bowled in the Advancers Round starting at 10 a.m. Eastern on Thursday. The field will then be cut to the top 24 with the top 8 players receiving first-round byes. All pins will be dropped prior to bracket match play. They will be the best two out of three game sets starting at 12:30 p.m. ET with qualifiers 9-24.
Those winners and the top 8 will bowl in the Round of 16 scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. ET. After a re-oil, the winners move into the Round of 8 starting at 5 p.m. ET. The final four undefeated bowlers will advance to the stepladder finals according to their bracket seed number, and the highest seeded losing bowler in the Round of 8 will be the No. 5 seed. The stepladder finals is set to begin at 8:30 p.m. ET. You can watch it all play out only on BowlTV.
Top 10 PBA50 South Shore Classic standings:
- John Marsala, 3,256 (+456)
- Troy Stus, 3,213 (+413)
- Tom Hess, 3,213 (+413)
- Chris Barnes, 3,194 (+394)
- John Janawicz, 3,189 (+389)
- Dino Castillo, 3,189 (+389)
- Brian LeClair, 3,172 (+372)
- Brian Link, 3,164 (+364)
- Jason Couch, 3,144 (+344)
- Mario Quintero, 3,142 (+342)