Packy Hanrahan wins PBA Cheetah Championship
The entire city of Minneapolis came down with a case of Pac-Man Fever on Saturday night.
Packy Hanrahan dominated the bracket finals of the PBA Cheetah Championship, the first title event of the PBA World Series of Bowling XVII, to win his third career PBA Tour title.
Hanrahan averaged more than 263 in his five games, defeating Chase Nadeau, Zachary Tackett, Kris Prather and Matt Sanders.
In a battle between southpaws in search of their first career televised PBA Tour title, Hanrahan swept Sanders in the Race-to-Two championship match with wins of 237-192 and 265-227.
“Nothing beats bowling on TV, besides winning on TV,” Hanrahan said. “It was awesome to be able to finally get one on TV. I’ve made TV a bunch over the last couple of years, and finally was able to lock in, put some good games together, especially when I needed to.”
Players qualified for the televised bracket finals on Friday, May 1 at Bowlero Brooklyn Park. Cam Crowe led the 120-player WSOB field during the 10-game qualifying round.
The top four seeds earned a bye in the bracket. In the Round of 12 and quarterfinals, two matches took place simultaneously. All matches prior to the Race-to-Two championship were single-game matches.
Hanrahan, who qualified fifth, defeated Chase Nadeau in his opening match. Nadeau, making his TV debut, got off to a slow start and Hanrahan never gave him a chance to get back into the match.
Kris Prather dispatched rookie sensation Brandon Bonta in the other match, 279-215.
High scores and the youth movement continued in the other Round of 12 matches as 21-year-old Minneapolis native Brandon Kreyer took down AJ Johnson 256-200, while Hayden Stippich defeated Bill O’Neill 258-234.
Hanrahan defeated fellow two-handed lefty Zachary Tackett in the quarterfinals.
(Yes, the best bowler in the world EJ Tackett does have a brother named Zac Tackett and, yes, Zac does bowl on the PBA Tour. The Zachary Tackett who made the Cheetah Championship finals, however, is from Virginia and is not related to the Indiana brothers. The fact that there are two professional bowlers named Zachary Tackett is nothing more than an incredible coincidence.)
Prather knocked off top seed Cam Crowe, while Kreyer and Stippich fell to higher seeds in Spencer Robarge and Matt Sanders, respectively.
In the semifinals, Hanrahan defeated Prather 259-214. Prather threw urethane equipment in the Round of 12, then reactive in the quarterfinals.
Following a re-oil, Prather started with reactive but switched to urethane after going Brooklyn and leaving a split to start the match. He followed the slow start up with a double, but single-pin leaves in the sixth, seventh and ninth frames did not allow him to keep up with the red-hot Hanrahan.
The other semifinal featured two southpaws throwing urethane, but one found much more success than the other. Robarge, one of four rookies to have won a title so far this season, couldn’t figure out how to string any strikes. Meanwhile Sanders fired 10 strikes in a row to start the match, but missed on the 11th to end his 300 bid. His final score of 283 may be a TV first.
“I was hoping he shot 300,” Hanrahan said. “Because then you get the huge adrenaline (rush) and then the huge adrenaline dump. Luckily for me, I feel like the lanes transitioned for him a little bit. I was able to keep up with (the transition). Whether it was my loft, my speed, or where I was playing on the lane, something just ended up being very similar to when I came off the lanes earlier. Maybe it was a little bit of luck, or maybe the bowling gods speaking my way.”
In the Race-to-Two championship match, Hanrahan cruised to victory in Game 1. Sanders threw four strikes with one double to Hanrahan’s nine strikes.
Hanrahan kept striking seemingly at-will in the second game, but a missed 7-pin spare attempt allowed Sanders to maintain a lead for most of the game. When Sanders left a 6-pin in the eighth frame, that set Hanrahan up with an opportunity to strike in the ninth, 10th and 11th frames for the win.
The 31-year-old recognized the stakes immediately.
“I told myself, ‘Three-bagger and it’s yours,’” Hanrahan said. “I also told myself, ‘Oh boy, I’m nervous.’ When you have a chance to win a tournament — whether it’s on TV, BowlTV or your Friday night local sweeper — when you step up in the 10th frame, the nerves are the same. They're just amplified on TV.”
He received a late kick of the 10-pin in the ninth before burying a strike in the 10th. On the match-deciding shot, he rolled a 3-pin in a fashion eerily reminiscent of Tom Daughtery’s 2021 PBA World Championship victory.
The World Series of Bowing continues on CBS Sports Network with the PBA50 Monacelli Championship finals at 2 p.m. CT (3 p.m. ET) and the PBA Chameleon Championship semifinals and finals at 3/5 p.m. CT (4/6 p.m. ET) on Sunday.
Monday night will feature the PBA50 Petraglia Championship and PBA Scorpion Championship finals.
On Tuesday, the PBA50 World Championship and PBA Shark Championship finals. Hanrahan also qualified for the Shark Championship.
Match Results
Round of 12
No. 9 Kris Prather def. No. 8 Brandon Bonta, 279-215
No. 5 Packy Hanrahan def. No. 12 Chase Nadeau, 268-169
No. 7 Brandon Kreyer def. No. 10 AJ Johnson, 256-200
No. 11 Hayden Stippich def. No. 6 Bill O’Neill, 258-234
Quarterfinals
No. 9 Kris Prather def. No. 1 Cam Crowe, 247-228
No. 5 Packy Hanrahan def. No. 4 Zachary Tackett, 289-174
No. 2 Spencer Robarge def. No. 7 Brandon Kreyer, 251-233
No. 3 Matt Sanders def. No. 11 Hayden Stippich, 258-247
Semifinals
No. 5 Packy Hanrahan def. No. 9 Kris Prather, 259-214
No. 3 Matt Sanders def. No. 2 Spencer Robarge, 283-201
Championship (Race-to-Two)
No. 5 Packy Hanrahan def. No. 3 Matt Sanders, 2-0
Game 1: Hanrahan def. Sanders, 237-192
Game 2: Hanrahan def. Sanders, 265-227
Final Standings
- Packy Hanrahan, $20,000
- Matt Sanders, $12,000
- Spencer Robarge, $9,000
- Kris Prather, $9,000
- Cam Crowe, $5,000
- Zachary Tackett, $5,000
- Brandon Kreyer, $5,000
- Hayden Stippich, $5,000
- Bill O’Neill, $3,500
- Brandon Bonta, $3,500
- AJ Johnson, $3,500
- Chase Nadeau, $3,500
More information on the PBA World Series of Bowling XVII is available here.