Clemmer, Johnson advance to singles medal round at Pan American Games
November 05, 2023
RESULTS AND INFORMATION
SANTIAGO, Chile – Team USA bowlers Breanna Clemmer of Clover, South Carolina, and A.J. Johnson of Oswego, Illinois, are both guaranteed no worse than a bronze-medal finish in singles at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
That’s because each bowled well enough to finish in the top four in their respective divisions at the conclusion of Saturday’s final eight-game block of singles qualifying at Plaza Vespucio Centro de Bowling.
Clemmer punched her ticket to the semifinals in highly dramatic fashion, shooting a final-game 267 to erase a 46-pin deficit and move past Aruba’s Kamilah Dammers for the fourth and final spot in the women’s medal round with a 16-game qualifying total of 3,278 (a 204.88 average).
There, will she face No. 1 seed Clara Guerrero of Colombia in a three-game, total-pinfall match that is scheduled to start Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern. Guerrero earned the top seed by leading all women’s qualifiers with a mark of 3,484 (a 217.75 average).
The other women’s semifinal will be contested at the same time and will pit No. 2 seed Sandra Gongora of Mexico against No. 3 Juliana Franco of Colombia.
Gongora and Franco finished qualifying with scores of 3,334 and 3,295, respectively.
Johnson earned the No. 3 seed on the men’s side after finishing qualifying with a two-day, 16-game total of 3,511 (a 219.44 average).
His opponent in the semifinals will be Marco Moretti of Costa Rica, who qualified second with a score of 3,545.
Top seed Mitch Hupe of Canada, who dominated the men’s field throughout much of qualifying and finished with a 16-game mark of 3,650 (a 228.13 average), will take on No. 4 seed Cristian Azcona of Puerto Rico in the other semifinal.
Azcona had the round of the day on Saturday, recording an eight-game total of 1,860 (a 232.5 average) thanks to scores of 213, 209, 218, 233, 279, 247, 245 and 216.
The two men’s semifinal matches will be contested at the same time and using the same format as the women’s semifinals.
The two semifinal winners in each division, men’s and women’s, will move on to a final three-game, total-pinfall match for the gold medal while the bowlers who fall in the semis will be awarded bronze medals.
The gold-medal matches are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Eastern with medal ceremonies to follow.
Clemmer would certainly like to take part in those ceremonies, but, for her, Sunday’s focus will be more on the process than on results.
“My execution hasn’t been the best, so I want to focus on visualizing my shot and what I want to see on the lane,” Clemmer said. “At the end of the day, that’s all I can control.”
At the midway point of Saturday’s final qualifying round, it looked like Clemmer had possibly lost control.
That’s because after beginning the day in third place, Clemmer quickly fell to seventh and found herself 80 pins out of advancing position after starting her set with scores of 195, 165 and 171.
She turned things around in games four, five and six, however, shooting 216, 235 and 233 to move back up to fifth place and cut the deficit to just three pins.
But that’s when disaster struck as bad ball reaction on a tricky pair of lanes led to a devastating 166 in Game 7.
That widened the gap on fourth place back out to 46 pins with one game to go, making it look as if Clemmer was going to be left on the outside looking in.
However, she was not about to go down without a fight, so fight she did.
After starting her final game with a spare, Clemmer proceeded to rip off seven consecutive strikes in frames two through eight.
Dammers, meanwhile, managed just two strikes during that same stretch, which allowed Clemmer to completely erase the near 50-pin deficit and establish a lead of her own.
A solid 10-pin in the ninth frame ended Clemmer’s string of strikes, but she easily converted the spare to stay clean and avoid giving Dammers any last-second hope.
If there was any doubt left regarding the outcome, Clemmer put an end to it when she doubled to start the 10th frame, which officially shut Dammers out and allowed Clemmer to enjoy a very hard-fought victory.
“I knew that I needed a big number going into that last game, but I was calm,” Clemmer said. “I just focused on visualizing my shots and controlling the things that I could control, and if the pins didn’t fall my way, they didn’t fall my way.”
But the pins did fall Clemmer’s way, and that means that she’ll leave Santiago with at least two medals – she earned her first on Thursday when she teamed up with Jordan Richard of Tipton, Michigan, to win gold in women’s doubles.
Richard put forth a strong showing of her own on Saturday, breaking 200 during six of her eight games (220, 204, 210, 278, 206 and 211) to move from 24th place after Day 1 to 12th at the end of Day 2.
Brandon Bonta of Wichita, Kansas, made an even more dramatic move up the leaderboard on the men’s side on Saturday.
He started the day in 17th place more than 125 pins outside the cut number, but he didn’t stay there for long after shooting nothing lower than 219 during his first seven games (235, 279, 244, 232, 228, 219 and 224).
Unfortunately, Bonta couldn’t keep the momentum going during Game 8, so he was forced to settle for a sixth-place finish just 33 pins shy of the cut number.
Johnson’s day was very similar to Bonta’s but with one notable exception: Johnson’s setback came one game earlier.
After opening Saturday’s set with games of 263, 239, 193, 242, 225 and 248, a tricky pair of lanes only allowed Johnson to record a 159 in Game 7.
The low number dropped him from second to third and suddenly brought his advancement to the semifinals back into question.
However, just as Clemmer had done hours earlier, Johnson dug deep and performed when he needed to most.
After suffering an open frame during the early stages of his final game, Johnson quickly righted the ship, stayed clean and threw enough strikes down the stretch to finish with a solid 212, which was more than enough to hold off Azcona and Venezuela’s Rodolfo Monacelli and push the American through to Sunday’s medal round.
Johnson was thrilled with the outcome, especially since, until the final game was over, he wasn’t quite sure just how much damage the Game 7 setback had done.
“Not knowing where scores were, I thought I was out of it and needed a big score to get me back in,” Johnson said. “After Game 7, I took a minute, reset and came back to try and figure out what I was going to do on that last pair.
“I’m super excited about the opportunity to move on to the next round, so I’m just going to try to make the most of it. I have to see what happens in practice, stick to our gameplan, execute and try to do as much as I can to move on and give us a chance to win another gold medal.”
For more information on Team USA, visit BOWL.com/TeamUSA.
SANTIAGO, Chile – Team USA bowlers Breanna Clemmer of Clover, South Carolina, and A.J. Johnson of Oswego, Illinois, are both guaranteed no worse than a bronze-medal finish in singles at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
That’s because each bowled well enough to finish in the top four in their respective divisions at the conclusion of Saturday’s final eight-game block of singles qualifying at Plaza Vespucio Centro de Bowling.
Clemmer punched her ticket to the semifinals in highly dramatic fashion, shooting a final-game 267 to erase a 46-pin deficit and move past Aruba’s Kamilah Dammers for the fourth and final spot in the women’s medal round with a 16-game qualifying total of 3,278 (a 204.88 average).
There, will she face No. 1 seed Clara Guerrero of Colombia in a three-game, total-pinfall match that is scheduled to start Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern. Guerrero earned the top seed by leading all women’s qualifiers with a mark of 3,484 (a 217.75 average).
The other women’s semifinal will be contested at the same time and will pit No. 2 seed Sandra Gongora of Mexico against No. 3 Juliana Franco of Colombia.
Gongora and Franco finished qualifying with scores of 3,334 and 3,295, respectively.
Johnson earned the No. 3 seed on the men’s side after finishing qualifying with a two-day, 16-game total of 3,511 (a 219.44 average).
His opponent in the semifinals will be Marco Moretti of Costa Rica, who qualified second with a score of 3,545.
Top seed Mitch Hupe of Canada, who dominated the men’s field throughout much of qualifying and finished with a 16-game mark of 3,650 (a 228.13 average), will take on No. 4 seed Cristian Azcona of Puerto Rico in the other semifinal.
Azcona had the round of the day on Saturday, recording an eight-game total of 1,860 (a 232.5 average) thanks to scores of 213, 209, 218, 233, 279, 247, 245 and 216.
The two men’s semifinal matches will be contested at the same time and using the same format as the women’s semifinals.
The two semifinal winners in each division, men’s and women’s, will move on to a final three-game, total-pinfall match for the gold medal while the bowlers who fall in the semis will be awarded bronze medals.
The gold-medal matches are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Eastern with medal ceremonies to follow.
Clemmer would certainly like to take part in those ceremonies, but, for her, Sunday’s focus will be more on the process than on results.
“My execution hasn’t been the best, so I want to focus on visualizing my shot and what I want to see on the lane,” Clemmer said. “At the end of the day, that’s all I can control.”
At the midway point of Saturday’s final qualifying round, it looked like Clemmer had possibly lost control.
That’s because after beginning the day in third place, Clemmer quickly fell to seventh and found herself 80 pins out of advancing position after starting her set with scores of 195, 165 and 171.
She turned things around in games four, five and six, however, shooting 216, 235 and 233 to move back up to fifth place and cut the deficit to just three pins.
But that’s when disaster struck as bad ball reaction on a tricky pair of lanes led to a devastating 166 in Game 7.
That widened the gap on fourth place back out to 46 pins with one game to go, making it look as if Clemmer was going to be left on the outside looking in.
However, she was not about to go down without a fight, so fight she did.
After starting her final game with a spare, Clemmer proceeded to rip off seven consecutive strikes in frames two through eight.
Dammers, meanwhile, managed just two strikes during that same stretch, which allowed Clemmer to completely erase the near 50-pin deficit and establish a lead of her own.
A solid 10-pin in the ninth frame ended Clemmer’s string of strikes, but she easily converted the spare to stay clean and avoid giving Dammers any last-second hope.
If there was any doubt left regarding the outcome, Clemmer put an end to it when she doubled to start the 10th frame, which officially shut Dammers out and allowed Clemmer to enjoy a very hard-fought victory.
“I knew that I needed a big number going into that last game, but I was calm,” Clemmer said. “I just focused on visualizing my shots and controlling the things that I could control, and if the pins didn’t fall my way, they didn’t fall my way.”
But the pins did fall Clemmer’s way, and that means that she’ll leave Santiago with at least two medals – she earned her first on Thursday when she teamed up with Jordan Richard of Tipton, Michigan, to win gold in women’s doubles.
Richard put forth a strong showing of her own on Saturday, breaking 200 during six of her eight games (220, 204, 210, 278, 206 and 211) to move from 24th place after Day 1 to 12th at the end of Day 2.
Brandon Bonta of Wichita, Kansas, made an even more dramatic move up the leaderboard on the men’s side on Saturday.
He started the day in 17th place more than 125 pins outside the cut number, but he didn’t stay there for long after shooting nothing lower than 219 during his first seven games (235, 279, 244, 232, 228, 219 and 224).
Unfortunately, Bonta couldn’t keep the momentum going during Game 8, so he was forced to settle for a sixth-place finish just 33 pins shy of the cut number.
Johnson’s day was very similar to Bonta’s but with one notable exception: Johnson’s setback came one game earlier.
After opening Saturday’s set with games of 263, 239, 193, 242, 225 and 248, a tricky pair of lanes only allowed Johnson to record a 159 in Game 7.
The low number dropped him from second to third and suddenly brought his advancement to the semifinals back into question.
However, just as Clemmer had done hours earlier, Johnson dug deep and performed when he needed to most.
After suffering an open frame during the early stages of his final game, Johnson quickly righted the ship, stayed clean and threw enough strikes down the stretch to finish with a solid 212, which was more than enough to hold off Azcona and Venezuela’s Rodolfo Monacelli and push the American through to Sunday’s medal round.
Johnson was thrilled with the outcome, especially since, until the final game was over, he wasn’t quite sure just how much damage the Game 7 setback had done.
“Not knowing where scores were, I thought I was out of it and needed a big score to get me back in,” Johnson said. “After Game 7, I took a minute, reset and came back to try and figure out what I was going to do on that last pair.
“I’m super excited about the opportunity to move on to the next round, so I’m just going to try to make the most of it. I have to see what happens in practice, stick to our gameplan, execute and try to do as much as I can to move on and give us a chance to win another gold medal.”
For more information on Team USA, visit BOWL.com/TeamUSA.