Allen reaches finals at USBC Masters
Oct 27, 2007 - 4:34 AM WAUWATOSA, Wisconsin (Ticker) -- Patrick Allen realizes how lucky he is to be bowling in a baseball stadium for the second time in four years, especially considering he nearly missed match play this week.Allen, who finished 61st after qualifying to earn one of the final four spots in match play, went a combined 5-0 in double elimination Thursday and Friday to earn the No. 2 seed for Sunday's 2007 USBC Masters championship round at the Milwaukee Brewers' Miller Park.
The Denny's PBA Tour's top young star, Sean Rash earned the No. 1 seed for his first career major championship round.
Rash, who posted a 676-600 win over Allen in the top-seeding match en route to a 6-0 mark, won his first career title two years ago as a non-exempt bowler. He went on to win two titles last season - his first as an exempt bowler - and takes a 6-0 career record on television into Sunday's title match.
Allen, a nine-time Tour titlist, finished second in the 2004 Masters finals at Miller Park, the only other time the championship round of a bowling event has been held in a Major League Baseball stadium.
"The last day and a half has been really interesting. I barely made the top 64, and then it's two different tournaments with qualifying and match play," Allen said. "I guess I proved you don't need to qualify high to make the show in this tournament because I've made the finals four times and never qualified higher than 50th.
"(Former Masters champion) Ernie Schlegel said this week (that) the Masters is the hardest major to win, and he's right because it doesn't matter what you do in qualifying."
Allen made the finals in 1993 as an amateur, then reached the finals in both 2004 Masters events, with one taking place in January of the 2003-04 season and the other in October of the 2004-05 campaign.
That season, Allen was the fourth seed and won two matches to get to the final before falling to Danny Wiseman. He does not feel that being the only one of Sunday's finalists to bowl in a baseball stadium will give him an advantage, however.
"Not against these guys. Maybe against an amateur in that setting," Allen said. "It's amazing to be able to bowl in that place twice. Most people would be happy to bowl there once, and you can't even imagine getting there twice. You can't draw it up any better."
The first match on Sunday has all-time Tour title leader Walter Ray Williams Jr. taking on seven-time champion Steve Jaros.
A 42-time winner, Williams defeated upstart Derek Eoff to advance to the finals. Jaros got past Stevie Weber to reach the finals of this event for the second time in his career.
The final four will bowl for $100,000 and a two-year exemption at at 1 p.m. EDT on Sunday. Non-PBA members, however, are not eligible to receive exemptions.
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