John Janawicz Maintains Lead in PBA50 TOC
Morgantown, WV – With eight final round-robin match play games to go in the 2025 PBA50 Tour season, the Player of the Year race is heating up.
John Janawicz capitalized on a 7-1 match play record to earn a 69-pin lead in the Johnny Petraglia PBA50 Tournament of Champions presented by Pleasant Day Schools. He averaged 217 with games of 237, 184, 235, 218, 222, 247, 213 and 185.
"The one thing I learned is to be open for anything. The (lanes) were OK the first game and then you are trying to follow other people with a lot of different science experiments going on. Some of them apparently are not as successful as others, so trying to follow some of those can be challenging," Janawicz said. "You just have to be ready because everything happens so much faster because everyone is playing basically on top of each other to some degree."
At his disposal are at least 45 bowling balls in his vehicle. While noticing the success Chris Warren was having early in match play, Janawicz went out to his car and brought in the same ball, which he hadn't used yet. That led to games of 235 and 218. He also drilled another ball after match play to add to his arsenal.
"Trying to prepare for tomorrow and get a couple of balls in the on-deck circle. You don't want to get to a point where you have paralysis by analysis, and I am always toeing that line at all times," he said. "You have to keep an open mind. Sometimes too many options can create a headache. At the same time, I like to think I have a fairly decent hold on it to be able to sort through all of it.”
Janawicz is 500 points ahead Brad Angelo in the Player of the Year race with 7,500 points up for grabs. Mika Koivuniemi, who is currently in second place after shooting 1,793, is 6,290 points behind Janawicz.
"I haven't won anything yet. I have to focus on the task in front of me. Try to get eight good solid games tomorrow and hopefully put myself in a good position on the show," Janawaicz said. "Don't take anything for granted and keep pressing forward. Hopefully, I can execute well for eight games and see where the cards lie."
Behind Janawicz is Mika Koivuniemi followed by Mitch Beasley, Parker Bohn III and Brad Angelo. Bohn III won his first seven games then tied Randy Weiss in Game 8 to post the best record on the day. He went from 13th place after the advancer's round to fourth place after the highest block of the day at 1,823.
The final eight games of match play will begin at 11 a.m. ET on Saturday. The top five will advance to the stepladder finals scheduled to start at 6 p.m. only on BowlTV.
Top 10 PBA50 Tournament of Champions (with bonus pins):
- John Janawicz, 7,361 (+961)
- Mika Koivuniemi, 7,292 (+892)
- Mitch Beasley, 7,276 (+876)
- Parker Bohn III, 7,252 (+852)
- Brad Angelo, 7,224 (+824)
- Tom Hess, 7,166 (+766)
- Chris Warren, 7,102 (+702)
- Randy Weiss, 7,080 (+680)
- Amleto Monacelli, 7,076 (+676)
- Dan Knowlton, 7,073 (+673)