BATON ROUGE - We’ve been concentrating on the high school playoffs which ended in exciting fashion this past week, but there has been a lot of movement in recent days in several different events at the USBC Open Championships at the Raising Canes River Center here in Baton Rouge.

There have been multiple lead changes in the past 72 hours, starting on Thursday when DiLauren Brothers Team 6 of Clinton Township, Michigan took the lead in the standard team division with a 2,812 total, the first team to top 2,800 in the event for teams whose five-player combined average is between 776-875.

Matthew Lesmeister had a 608 for the team with Brent Ryan at 579.

Friday, Ronnie Sparks, Jr., and Jay Lang, who have a combined five USBC Open titles between them, moved into the regular doubles division lead as the Michigan pair posted 1,468.

Then Jeffrey Greco of Fort Wayne, Indiana, posted a 786 three-game set to take the lead in regular singles.

But there’s more, Jeffrey Mersch of Orlando, Florida shot the second 800 series of the event with games of 289-258-279 for an 826 series in doubles with Matthew Tuckfield, also of Orlando, and they are in second place after posting 45 pins behind the new leaders at 1,423.

Amazingly, the regular team lead changed hands on Sunday as the Phat Kids Crew, made of five Illinois bowlers, became the first quintet to top the 3,300 mark in the event at 3,300 even.

For comparison’s sake, in 2012 in Baton Rouge, it took 3,401 to capture the prestigious top division team title, while it only took 3,302 in 2005 at the River Center. Last year in Reno, the winning score at the National Bowling Stadium was 3,373.

That’s the thing. Results could change quickly or leads could hold. It does seem that scores are better but having watched some teams bowl, it is really going to take a special team working together to handle a pattern that is pretty tricky. We will see.

Bowler’s Journal
There is no doubt the doubles and singles pattern that is being used at the River Center is very favorable for those bowling the Bowler’s Journal event at All Star Lanes in Baton Rouge.

There have been six 300 games shot and the doubles lead has changed hands more than once in the last 10 days or so.

There was a lot of local excitement when Baton Rouge bowlers Mykel Holliman and Gregory Snee did the things that lots of bowlers have seen them do many times in this city (that would be strike) and took the lead in doubles with a 1,477 total.

Unfortunately, that lasted about two days as Chelsea Sporkia and Bill Machin of Eugene, Oregon upped that by one pin to 1,478. That right now isn’t good enough either as Jack Vault and Derek Magno of New York have pushed it to 1,522. Vault had a 790 set and that is the lead in Open Singles.

Speaking of Open Singles, Snee is in a solid fourth place with his 751 set.

So lots of good stuff happening and we’ll be following some of the other stories in the weeks ahead.

Pepsi Finals
With the Pepsi Championships at Bowlero Kenner taking place on the heels of the high school playoffs this past week, some of the same bowlers were involved at the end on Sunday in the top division.

In the girls U18 division, Caroline Engeron, bronze medalist for Albany in high school singles, won the division in the bracket championship, 176-167, over Alexandra Young.

Joshua Collins, a member of the Shaw boys/coed D1 team, won the U18 boys division.

Another Major
The PBA’s final major will be on TV this weekend with the prelim round of the Tournament of Champions on Saturday on FS1 at 4 p.m. and then Sunday at 2 p.m. on FOX Sports. No news yet that FOX is going to renew the best contract the PBA has had since the ABC days when Saturday afternoons meant bowling on ABC Sports from the early 1960s through 1997.

Thanks for checking out this week's bowling column. Until next Monday, good luck and good bowling.