Crawley leads after two rounds at 2023 PWBA Great Lakes Classic
June 06, 2023
WYOMING, Mich. – England’s Verity Crawley averaged 220.81 and posted an 11-4-1 record in match play through the first two rounds to lead the field Monday at the 2023 Professional Women’s Bowling Association Tour Great Lakes Classic.
Crawley finished her day at Spectrum Lanes with a 3,878 total, which included 30 bonus pins for each victory in the round-robin format for the third event of the week.
Diana Zavjalova of Latvia grabbed second place after authoring a 12-4 match-play mark and coming in with a 3,864 total.
Shannon Pluhowsky of Dayton, Ohio (3,821); Jordan Richard of Tipton, Michigan (3,776); and Liz Kuhlkin of Schenectady, New York (3,615), also are in the top five.
All competitors will return to Spectrum Lanes on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Eastern for the final eight-game block of match play. The top five, based on total pinfall and bonus pins, will advance to Tuesday’s stepladder finals and compete for the $12,000 top prize.
BowlTV.com will broadcast the final match-play round and stepladder finals, which will air Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.
Crawley began Monday’s action at the Great Lakes Classic just three days after capturing her second career PWBA Tour title, which came Friday night when she defeated Germany’s Birgit Noreiks, 258-189, to win the PWBA Grand Rapids Classic, which was the first event of the three-tournament Classic Series – Grand Rapids.
The PWBA BowlTV Classic came next and was won by Stephanie Zavala of Downey, California, who topped Pluhowsky 223-202 on Sunday night to collect her fifth PWBA Tour title in less than three full seasons on tour.
Crawley missed the cut at that tournament, but she thinks that it may have actually been something of a blessing in disguise.
“I was actually very happy to have the day off yesterday because my thumb is a bit of a mess,” Crawley said. “Bowling so many games in a short amount of time like this is what we work for in the offseason, but it can be pretty brutal.”
Crawley’s assessment really hits home when you take a closer look at the numbers.
Each event at the Classic Series – Grand Rapids began with 12 games of qualifying. Bowlers who made the cut then bowled two six-game sets of round-robin match play, bringing their total up to 28 games.
The top five bowlers then advanced to stepladder-finals competition, which, depending upon where a player qualified, meant anywhere from one to four additional games for a grand total of 28 possible games in just two days.
That’s just for one tournament of the three-event series, which means that if a bowler performed well enough to reach the stepladder finals in all three tournaments, she could end up bowling as many as 84 games in six days.
To be clear, none of the nearly 100 competitors who competed in Grand Rapids this week will end up reaching that number, but some are much closer than others, and the mental and physical wear and tear is definitely starting to show.
Crawley’s total for the week stood at 54 games after the completion of Monday’s first two rounds of Great Lakes Classic match play. She has at least eight more to go Tuesday morning, but she’s hoping for even more.
“Being able to compete at a high level day after day like this shows our level of endurance and the mental and physical power that we have to have to be able to show up and perform,” Crawley said. “I commend the people who made the cut at all three events. I didn’t make the cut in the second one, so I had the day off yesterday, which I think was monumental toward helping me feel like I could physically perform today.”
Despite missing the cut at the second event in the series, Crawley’s overall performance during the qualifying rounds of the first two tournaments allowed her to stay inside the overall top 24 and qualify for the final competition.
The Classic Series – Grand Rapids features three events – PWBA Grand Rapids Classic, PWBA BowlTV Classic and PWBA Great Lakes Classic – with the combined qualifying totals for the Grand Rapids Classic and BowlTV Classic (24 games) determining the 24 advancers for the Great Lakes Classic.
Pinfall dropped for all athletes at the beginning of the Great Lakes Classic.
Despite the long and arduous road it’s taken to get there, Crawley is happy with the position she’s put herself in with one day of competition remaining in Grand Rapids, and she’s hoping to finish strong.
“Eight more games is a lot, and bonus pins make a huge difference. For me, it’s going to be about winning matches, staying in the pocket and staying present,” Crawley said. “Anything can happen in eight games, so I need to treat it like a whole new day and do it all over again.”
To learn more about the PWBA Tour, visit PWBA.com.
Crawley finished her day at Spectrum Lanes with a 3,878 total, which included 30 bonus pins for each victory in the round-robin format for the third event of the week.
Diana Zavjalova of Latvia grabbed second place after authoring a 12-4 match-play mark and coming in with a 3,864 total.
Shannon Pluhowsky of Dayton, Ohio (3,821); Jordan Richard of Tipton, Michigan (3,776); and Liz Kuhlkin of Schenectady, New York (3,615), also are in the top five.
All competitors will return to Spectrum Lanes on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Eastern for the final eight-game block of match play. The top five, based on total pinfall and bonus pins, will advance to Tuesday’s stepladder finals and compete for the $12,000 top prize.
BowlTV.com will broadcast the final match-play round and stepladder finals, which will air Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.
Crawley began Monday’s action at the Great Lakes Classic just three days after capturing her second career PWBA Tour title, which came Friday night when she defeated Germany’s Birgit Noreiks, 258-189, to win the PWBA Grand Rapids Classic, which was the first event of the three-tournament Classic Series – Grand Rapids.
The PWBA BowlTV Classic came next and was won by Stephanie Zavala of Downey, California, who topped Pluhowsky 223-202 on Sunday night to collect her fifth PWBA Tour title in less than three full seasons on tour.
Crawley missed the cut at that tournament, but she thinks that it may have actually been something of a blessing in disguise.
“I was actually very happy to have the day off yesterday because my thumb is a bit of a mess,” Crawley said. “Bowling so many games in a short amount of time like this is what we work for in the offseason, but it can be pretty brutal.”
Crawley’s assessment really hits home when you take a closer look at the numbers.
Each event at the Classic Series – Grand Rapids began with 12 games of qualifying. Bowlers who made the cut then bowled two six-game sets of round-robin match play, bringing their total up to 28 games.
The top five bowlers then advanced to stepladder-finals competition, which, depending upon where a player qualified, meant anywhere from one to four additional games for a grand total of 28 possible games in just two days.
That’s just for one tournament of the three-event series, which means that if a bowler performed well enough to reach the stepladder finals in all three tournaments, she could end up bowling as many as 84 games in six days.
To be clear, none of the nearly 100 competitors who competed in Grand Rapids this week will end up reaching that number, but some are much closer than others, and the mental and physical wear and tear is definitely starting to show.
Crawley’s total for the week stood at 54 games after the completion of Monday’s first two rounds of Great Lakes Classic match play. She has at least eight more to go Tuesday morning, but she’s hoping for even more.
“Being able to compete at a high level day after day like this shows our level of endurance and the mental and physical power that we have to have to be able to show up and perform,” Crawley said. “I commend the people who made the cut at all three events. I didn’t make the cut in the second one, so I had the day off yesterday, which I think was monumental toward helping me feel like I could physically perform today.”
Despite missing the cut at the second event in the series, Crawley’s overall performance during the qualifying rounds of the first two tournaments allowed her to stay inside the overall top 24 and qualify for the final competition.
The Classic Series – Grand Rapids features three events – PWBA Grand Rapids Classic, PWBA BowlTV Classic and PWBA Great Lakes Classic – with the combined qualifying totals for the Grand Rapids Classic and BowlTV Classic (24 games) determining the 24 advancers for the Great Lakes Classic.
Pinfall dropped for all athletes at the beginning of the Great Lakes Classic.
Despite the long and arduous road it’s taken to get there, Crawley is happy with the position she’s put herself in with one day of competition remaining in Grand Rapids, and she’s hoping to finish strong.
“Eight more games is a lot, and bonus pins make a huge difference. For me, it’s going to be about winning matches, staying in the pocket and staying present,” Crawley said. “Anything can happen in eight games, so I need to treat it like a whole new day and do it all over again.”
To learn more about the PWBA Tour, visit PWBA.com.