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By Daniel Farish
PWBA Communications

Hello everyone, and welcome to the 2000-2009 region of the Ultimate Queens Bracket Challenge!

When this idea was first proposed by Aaron Smith, I couldn’t wait to get started. For those of you that don’t know me, I am born, raised and still reside in Louisville, Kentucky. I grew up in a world where schools let us out for the first two days of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Brackets and I go together like fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

I’m taking on the 2000-2009 region and if you look at our eight champions and consider them at their absolute prime, I don’t know that you can find a tougher bracket in this contest. Here are the matches you can vote on today by visiting the PWBA’s Twitter and Instagram Accounts:

(1) Wendy Macpherson (1988, 2000, 2003) vs. (8) Kelly Kulick (2007, 2010)
(4) Lynda Barnes (1998, 2008) vs. (5) Carolyn Dorin-Ballard (2001)
(3) Marianne DiRupo (2004) vs. (6) Shannon Pluhowsky (2006)
(2) Kim Terrell-Kearney (2002) vs. (7) Tennelle Milligan (2005)

Each of these matches has an underlying storyline that we are going to tackle in this preview, starting with the match that has the most layers to it, Macpherson vs. Kulick.

In order to do this, we must travel back to the 2007 USBC Queens at AMF Carolina Lanes in Matthews, North Carolina.

The No. 5 seed Macpherson was looking to become the first player in history to claim the coveted Queens title for a fourth time. She was the lone veteran in a stepladder full of young, talented, and hungry players looking to make their mark on the sport.

After dispatching of Team USA member Shannon O’Keefe, Macpherson set her sights on Kulick, the No. 3 seed.

Described by 1993 Queens champion and ESPN commentator Jan Schmidt as the odds-on favorite, Kulick was coming off her first full season on the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) Tour after becoming the first woman to earn a PBA Tour exemption.

Both players started out with three strikes in the first four frames, and following a Kulick strike in the fifth, the pressure was on Macpherson to keep up the pace. The next three frames for the three-time champion would spell doom, however, as two single pins and a 4-6-7-10 split ended her run at a fourth title.

Kulick kept striking, in the match and on the telecast, defeating Kristal Scott and Diandra Asbaty to collect the first of two Queens titles.

Macpherson, inducted into the USBC Hall of Fame in 2009 and PWBA Hall of Fame in 2019, was the all-time earnings leader in women’s professional bowling with $1.2 million when the PWBA went on hiatus in 2003. Four times between 1996 and 2000, Macpherson was named PWBA Player of the Year.

Kulick went on to claim the 2010 Queens title and became the first woman ever to win a PBA Tour title, defeating Chris Barnes at the 2010 PBA Tournament of Champions. She is a 16-time member of Team USA and owns over 40 medals in international competition.

When looking at this matchup, I imagine 1997 Wendy Macpherson squaring off against 2010 Kelly Kulick. Pretty difficult to choose, isn’t it?

Moving on to our second match, we have a pair of players who never had to win more than one game on TV in order to claim their Queens titles, but they both needed clutch shots in their respective 10th frames to win.

In 1998, Lynda Barnes cruised to her first Queens title with a win over Karen Stroud, building a 57-pin lead by the midway point of the match. It was in 2008, however, that Barnes would be forced to throw some of the biggest shots of her career.

Matched up against Amy Stolz, Barnes held a 21-pin lead as she stepped up in the ninth frame. A vicious 10 pin evened up the match, forcing Barnes to strike out in the 10th, which would force Stolz to do the same for a tie.

After delivering a pair of strikes (flush and half-pocket), she split the 8-9 on the fill shot and put all the pressure on Stolz, who had been struggling to get the ball to the pocket the entire match. That trend continued as Stolz went light on her first shot, leaving the 2-5 to give Barnes her second Queens title.

The 2001 PWBA Tour season belonged to Carolyn Dorin-Ballard. She came into the season with 10 career PWBA titles and would leave the season with 17 titles and a pair of firsts: her first PWBA Player of the Year award, and her first major.

In the title match of the 2001 Queens, Dorin-Ballard was squaring off with a newcomer, a player bowling her first tournament as a pro… Kulick.

Kulick showed us a glimpse into the future, going shot for shot with CDB all the way to the 10th frame. Kulick delivered a double to force Dorin-Ballard to throw the first strike in the final frame for the win.

Having already left two light 7 pins and a 2-4-5 on her finishing lane, Dorin-Ballard made a small adjustment that enabled the ball to tip just a little bit extra on the back part of the lane to carry the swisher strike for her first, and only, major title.

For this match between Barnes and Dorin-Ballard, give me the 2008 Barnes that threw all three in the 10th against the 2001 Dorin-Ballard, who claimed seven titles and PWBA Player of the Year.

For our third match, we have two players who faced a barrage of strikes from their opponents early on and were able to take advantage of mistakes later in the game to claim their titles.

In 2004, Marianne DiRupo had two strikes in the first five frames against Michelle Feldman, who rolled three strikes to begin the match. After a single pin in the fourth frame, Feldman opened the fifth and failed to throw a strike the rest of the way.

DiRupo used that open from Feldman to take the lead with strikes in the sixth and seventh frames. She tacked on another double in the eighth and ninth and secured the victory with a nine count in the final frame.

It’s hard to imagine that Shannon Pluhowsky has just one PWBA Tour title. But, if you’re going to win just one (so far), you might as well make it a big one.

In 2006, Pluhowsky and Liz Johnson battled for the title, and after both players split in the second frame, it was going to be about who could rebound first.

Pluhowsky threw only two strikes in the next six frames, with one open, while Johnson threw four strikes and two spares.

A split in the ninth for Johnson, however, opened the door for Pluhowsky to strike out and secure the win. The southpaw delivered three of the most cold-blooded, pressure-packed strikes you could ever see in your life.

For this match, give me the exact versions of these players mentioned above. I want players who have ice water running through their veins. They say there is no defense in bowling, but the intimidation factor of knowing your opponent is going to double if you make one mistake is enough to make me think twice about what I’m doing.

The final match features two players who had to endure some nerve-racking moments in the final frames of their respective title matches.

It was the Kim Show in 2002, with Kim Kearney taking on Kim Adler.

Kearney was looking for her second straight major (2001 U.S. Women’s Open); Adler, looking for her 16th career title. The two went back and forth during the entire match, and only four pins separated them as Kearney stepped up in the final frame.

A double and seven pins, and she would claim the title. Anything less, and Adler would have a chance.

Kearney struck on the first shot and left a weak 10 pin on the second. Sitting on the bench, she had to wait and see if Adler would throw a double of her own to take the victory.

On a lane where she had gone high the previous two shots, Adler again went heavy on the head pin and left a 3-6-10, giving Terrell-Kearney the win.

Tennelle Milligan didn’t have to endure the anxiousness of winning her 2005 title on the bench. She did, however, experience a roller coaster of a match in which she never trailed but never was able to get comfortable.

After opening with four strikes, Milligan watched as her opponent, Anne Marie Duggan, doubled once in her first four frames, and opened in the fifth. With more than a 30-pin lead through four frames, all Milligan had to do was finish strong, stay clean and not let Duggan back in the match.

A missed single pin in the fifth and flagged 2-8 in the eighth would’ve let Duggan right back in the match, had she not accumulated a second open frame for herself in the seventh.

Milligan needed a strike and a spare in the tenth frame to shut out Duggan. She flushed the first shot, then got a little fast with the second pitch, leaving what I call the Super Bucket (2-4-5-7-8).

Remember, this was on the lane where she had previously flagged the 2-8 to the right. Anyone who has shot the 2-4-5-7-8 knows there are a million ways to chop it, and only two ways to make it. Milligan had apparently never heard that old adage (or maybe it wasn’t invented yet), made the adjustment from the previous 2-8 attempt, and hooked perfectly into the 2-5, converting the spare.

For this match, I would want to see 2001-2002 Kim Kearney, who won back-to-back majors, against the Tennelle Milligan who won both the U.S. Women’s Open and the PWBA Players Championship titles in 2000.

Now that you’ve studied up on the history of our eight competitors, it’s time to vote! I know who I’m voting for…do you?