McCune secures top spot for PBA event

March 20, 2016 at 12:09a.m.

Bell-Wick is site for today’s finals

HUBBARD

Eugene McCune of Munster, Ind., rolled 1,959 during Saturday’s “B” squad session to nail down the top qualifying spot for today’s round-robin match play segment of the PBA Hubbard Open.

“I bowled good,” said McCune, who averaged 270 on odd games (1-3-5-7) and 217 on even games (2-4-6-8) on Saturday evening.

“It was the normal shot that I’ve had and a couple balls that I had [in his inventory] gave me good looks [lines that he plays hard and straight],” McCune said. “I pulled out a different ball the last four games and shot a couple good games in a row. The lanes and the shot here [Cheetah] cater to my game.”

McCune’s second and fourth games were 190s before closing out his eight-game session.

It was McCune’s fourth appearance at Bell-Wick, where he won in 2014 before finishing runnerup to Kelly Jordon last March.

“Hopefully, I can bowl more bigger games in a row,” McCune said. “Last year I did that too. Every other game was good and I happened to have a good game to sneak in [to the stepladder finals]. Then I had another good game, then a bad game [during the championship loss to Jordon].”

Saturday’s Nos. 2 and 3 qualifiers, respectively, were John Szczerbinski of N. Tonawanda, N.Y., and Diana Zavjalova of Latvia, both with 1,920 pins. They were followed by Tommy Gollick (1,913); Matthew O’Grady (1,903); Chandler Stevens of Archbold (1,894); John Furey of Freehold, N.J. (1,894); David Knight (1,892), Brett Spangler (1,891); Ryan Shafer (1,887); Robert Vest of Chillicothe (1,870); E.J. Tackett of Huntington, Ind. (1,868); Ryan Ciminelli (1,864); Zachery Tackett of Huntington, Ind. (1,859); J.R. Raymond (1,848); and Robert Harvischak of Campbell (1,841).

Zavjalova is the only woman among the final 16.

“I bowl for my country – I am from Latvia,” said Zavjalova, a PWBA member who has been in the U.S. for the last six years and lives in Beavercreek.

Harvischak was the 16th and final qualifier on Saturday, putting the 26-year-old into today’s match play for a second straight year.

“I couldn’t stay out of my own way in the first couple games,” Harvischak said of missing a few spares. “I got comfortable starting in game four, then had 279 in my fifth game to get going. I had 278 in game eight to be the cut number [16th].”

In 2015, Harvischak qualified eighth on Saturday, then finished 15th on Sunday.