Chris Barnes Leads Day One of PBA50 TOC
Morgantown, W.V. – Two of the greatest minds on the PBA50 Tour continue to learn from each other. Chris Barnes took advantage of being on B-squad Wednesday by watching how his good friend John Janawicz attacked the lanes, during Day 1 of qualifying in the PBA50 Johnny Petraglia BVL Tournament of Champions presented by Pleasant Day Schools.
“I tried to do everything J.J. did and I got to game plan a little bit based off of him,” Barnes said. “He and I see the lanes very similarly. There are a lot of times we try to do the same things, yet we go about our own way of getting to that spot.”
Based on what Barnes saw Janawicz do and what he personally experienced inside Suburban Lanes in practice, everything matched up well in his head. The results for Barnes were 226, 243, 236, 214, 247, 257, 177 and 227 to lead the way at +227. In Game 7, Barnes ran into a challenge on lanes 9 & 10.
“It is a tricky pair to go into blind. Tomorrow, we will be a little closer knowing the two lanes are quite a bit different,” Barnes said. “They are different from the other pairs, so you lose a lot of frames early.”
Barnes achieved his first objective of the week by getting out of the gates strong with the leaders. He knows there is a long way to go, but he learned some valuable information to add to his thorough notes. Now it is about improving as the week goes on.
Just eight pins behind Barnes is Janawicz, who led A-squad at +219. He rolled games of 194, 240, 264, 280, 204, 215, 232 and 190. Janawicz won the two previous tournaments with Petraglia and BVL in the title, both held in Florida. And last year in the Morgantown Classic, Janawicz finished third.
“I still don’t have a great picture on the fresh (46-foot oil pattern). Once I figured it out, I got deep enough and the right ball. That is where I hit them in Games 2, 3 and 4. Overall, it was a pretty well bowled block,” Janawicz said. “They are not easy by any stretch of the imagination. I’m off to a good start and want to use some of that momentum to have a good block tomorrow afternoon.”
After finishing his block, Janawicz watched Barnes and a few others trying to get a feel for what worked technique wise and angle wise. Janawicz, who currently leads the Player of the Year race, hopes to end this week on a good note. He is just four pins ahead of Timothy Elsass in third at +215. Mika Koivuniemi, who finished in second place at last year’s TOC, is in fourth place at +211. Right on his heels is Dan Knowlton, who won the last PBA50 Tour tournament held in Morgantown last year. Knowlton is fifth at +210.
Qualifying will continue on Thursday with eight more games to determine the top 32 players who will move into the advancer’s round. Barnes and the rest of B-squad will be on the lanes at 9 a.m. Eastern followed by Janawicz and A-squad at 3:30 p.m. only on BowlTV.
Top 10 PBA50 Tournament of Champions:
- Chris Barnes, 1,827 (+227)
- John Janawicz, 1,819 (+219)
- Timothy Elsass, 1,815 (+215)
- Mika Koivuniemi, 1,811 (+211)
- Dan Knowlton, 1,810 (+210)
- Bill Rowe, 1,806 (+206)
- Amleto Monacelli, 1,798 (+198)
- Brad Angelo, 1,794 (+194)
- Andres Gomez, 1,792 (+192)
- Tom Hess, 1,787 (+187)