2024 PBA Shark Championship Round Three and Match Play

S.Samek

After rounds one and two of the Shark championship we move on to round three and the match play round to determine who makes the step ladder finals.

Round 3 -5 games

Shota Kawazoe the leader after two rounds started the round off with a 277-game increasing his lead. Though two players shot 300 games during game 11 with Jesper Svensson and Graham Fach fired perfect games. However despite the strong start neither Svensson, or Fach made the cut to the top 16.

Gary Faulkner Jr. shot a 300 game during game 13 as well. Kevin McCune picked the perfect time to shoot a 300 as he did so during the 15th game. This allowed him to tie for 16th place with Kristopher Prather. A one game roll-off would determine who makes the bracket and who doesn’t. Faulkner Jr finished outside the cut in 71st place.

Prather went on to win the roll-off 254-224 to advance to the bracket.

AJ Johnson was able to bypass Kawazoe and take first place by four pins. Kawazoe earned the second seed for the bracket. Matt Russo ended up in third place. Then fourth place is Matt Saunders and Nicola Pongolini is in fifth place, rounding out the top five.

Match Play

Johnson and Prather matched up in the round of 16. Prather swept Johnson 3-0 to eliminate the top seed. This included a thrilling one pin win 529-258 win in game two. Robin Ilhammar won his match over Mitch Hupe 3-0 to advance to the round of eight to face Prather.

Kawazoe was taken to five games in his round of 16 match with Nate Purches, but a 264 in game five was enough to move on to the round of eight. Jake Peters also won his match 3-2 in the round of 16 to advance to face Kawazoe in the next round.

Russo, EJ Tackett, Anthony Simonsen and Pongolini all won in the round of 16 as well.

In the round of eight Kawazoe went on to sweep Peter 3-0 to earn the top seed for the stepladder finals. Tackett defeated Russo in four games to advance to the stepladder as the second seed.

Russo shot a 299 game during the series and despite losing it claimed the fifth seed for the stepladder as the highest seeded player to lose during the round of eight.

Simonsen had a 2-0 lead on Pongolini, but with two losses in a row forced a game five. Simonsen took game five 529-194 to move on as the three seed to the stepladder finals.

The fourth seed for the stepladder finals goes to Prather after he defeated Ilhammar in four games including a 278 in the deciding game.

The finals will air on Wednesday April 17,2024 at 7 PM Est.