BATON ROUGE - Note to the PBA staff: Please prepare a champion’s banner to be displayed for Zachary Leshikar at the next tournament after he won the title in the $25,000 PBA SW Dudley DeBosier Open Sunday at All Star Lanes.

When the eight-game round-robin match play final round ended, Leshikar of Altus, Oklahoma, had his second regional PBA title, but more importantly, his first as a PBA member, which will give him a banner that will be posted on the lane masking units in any PBA regional event he bowls in. Leshikar’s first PBA Regional win came when he was in college.

Frankly, in the end it looked fairly easy, but it was one of several circumstances along an eight-game set of games between three bowlers that held the lead during the day.

It started with Amarillo’s Mason Edmondson who led the qualifying after averaging 248 for 13 qualifying games Saturday and early Sunday that gave him a 26-pin lead over two-time PBA national tour champ Shawn Maldonado of Houston entering match play.

The two players met in the first set of matches and Edmondson had just one strike in a clean 188 game. However Maldonado posted 238 and earned the 30 bonus pins for winning the match and moved to the lead.

In the second match, Leshikar, who started fourth and shot a winning 256 in the opening game to move to second, was against Maldonado and it was one of those classic one-on-one matches with each bowler striking out in the tenth for a 279 tie. It pushed both players further away from the other six bowlers and showed that Leshikar wasn’t going to go away easily.

Maldonado held the lead through the first six games, but never was quite able to get far away as Leshikar kept winning matches and adding those 30 bonus points.

In game 7, Maldonado, a 19-time regional winner, seemed to lose the line on the 47-foot PBA Dragon pattern, with three splits and a missed 10 pin in a 146 game. At the same time, Leshikar was winning again with a 205 and with the bonus, he entered the position round with a 55-pin lead. That meant Maldonado had to win the final match over Leshikar by 26 pins to get the 30 bonus pins to move back to the lead.

It wasn’t happening. Leshikar gave no signs of easing up, posing a seemingly easy 267-205 win to earn not only the $3,000 first prize (and that banner) but also the rare 7-0-1 mark in match play.

Leshikar finished at +1,112 on a 200-par score, averaging 242 for the tournament.  

“I’m very pleased,” Leshikar said afterwards. “I was just trying to find that carry that wasn’t quite there for everybody. But the thing I was able to at least either tie or win my matches by a little bit to stay in the tournament. I would say the big thing would be was to kind of play it safe, even when your look isn’t the greatest, to stay of that trouble like those 3-7 splits, the 4-6 combo splits, the 7-10s, the 2-7s, all of those and just make your spares, because at the end of the day, the spares are going to keep you in the game.”

The 23-year-old two-handed lefty, who competed at Wichita State, finished T9 in this past year’s USBC Masters on the PBA Tour.

Maldonado, who came from Philadelphia after being eliminated after the qualifying round of the final national stop on the tour in the U.S. this year in the Norm Duke Open, earned $2,000 for second place. He finished at +965 for the weekend, a 240 average.

Third and $1,250 went to Noah Krupczak (4-4 in match play) of San Antonio at +904, a 237 average.

Edmondson, who led after eight and 13 games of qualifying, finished fourth (4-4 record) at +856, a 235 average.

Former Baton Rouge bowler, Joshua Green, ended up the top bowler with local ties after the 13 games of qualifying at +333 (225 average) to earn $620. Baton Rouge’s Brian Dinh finished 16^th for $580.

There were two more 300 games in the five-game advancer’s round before the field was cut to the final eight as Zach Snow, who finished ninth, and Zachary Smullen (who finished fifth) found the range for the 12 strikes.

A reminder the Bowler’s Mart tournament is this weekend at All Star Lanes and the weekly Monday night Sacks of Cash No Tap singles, doubles and other events begins a six-week run tonight at All Star. 

As always, until next Monday, good luck and good bowling,

                                                                             Kent Lowe

PBA SW Dudley DeBosier Open

All Star Lanes Baton Rouge

Final 21-game standings (including 8-games of match play)

Bowler/Match Play Record/+ score/Average/Event Pins/Price Money

1 Zachary Leshikar/7-0-1/+1112/242/5,312/$3,000

2 Shawn Maldonado/3-4-1/+965/240/5,165/$2.000

3 Noah Krupczak/4-4-0/+904/237/5,104/$1,250

4 Mason Edmondson/4-4-0/+856/235/5,056/$1,000

5 Zachary Smullen/4-4-0/+724/228/4,924/$950

6 Cody Uthoff/3-5-0/+723/230/4,923/$900

7 Jared Coker/3-5-0/+514/220/4,714/$850

*8 Ethan Gomez/3-5-0/+512/220/4,712/$800

Note: Gomez won a one-game rolloff after tying with Zachary Snow for eighth place after 13 games. Gomez won, 203-177.