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HENDERSON, Nev.- Venezuela's Karen Marcano battled through a painful hand injury to mount a comeback and win the Masters gold medal at the 2010 Pan American Bowling Confederation Women's Championships in suburban Las Vegas on Friday.

The 31-year-old right-hander cut open her hand on a broken thumb slug but was able to patch it up and push through the pain in a dramatic 2-1 victory over Colombia's Clara Guerrero at Sunset Station Hotel and Casino's Strike Zone Bowling Center.

As the higher seed entering the championship match, Marcano earned the choice of lane condition for the first game of the best-of-three match.

Despite the advantage, Guerrero took a 1-0 lead with a 204-179 win on the 40-foot Athens pattern and then jumped out to a 25-pin lead after five frames in Game 2, which was contested on the 34-foot Stockholm pattern. Marcano used six consecutive strikes to even the match with a 221-203 victory and force a deciding game on the Athens pattern.

After Marcano closed out the finale with 182, Guerrero had a chance to double in the final frame to win the gold medal, but left the 4-6-7 split to finish with a strikeless 168.

"I had to figure out how I was going to bowl because it was really painful," said Marcano, who won the singles gold medal at last year's PABCON Championships in San Juan, Puerto Rico. "It hurt, but I tried to do my best in every frame. I am just very, very happy right now."

On the way to the championship match, Marcano defeated Puerto Rico's Jessica Santiago (2-1), Mexico's Sandra Gongora (2-1) and Team USA's Shannon O'Keefe (2-0). O'Keefe did have a chance to strike out for a tie in their second semifinal game, but the pins just didn't fall her way.

"You can't throw it that badly and expect to move on, so I was lucky to get as far as I did today," said O'Keefe, who earned three medals this week. "Obviously, I'm still happy because it's a medal, but I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to settle in physically."

Guerrero's path to the finals included wins over Canada's Felicia Wong (2-1) and Team USA's Kelly Kulick (2-0) before taking out top-seed Liz Johnson, 2-1, in a battle that also came down to the final frame.

O'Keefe and Johnson each received bronze medals for their Masters efforts Friday.

"I bowled well on the medium pattern today, and I'm real happy with my performance overall," said Johnson, who also won gold medals in team and all-events as well as a bronze in trios. "I felt focused, and I made some really good shots, but Clara bowled well and deserved to win the match. It's been a great week overall, and I'm very happy."

The 2010 PABCON Women's Championships featured 60 competitors from 13 countries competing for medals in six events - five-player team, trios, doubles, singles, all-events and Masters match play.

Team USA took home 10 medals, followed by Venezuela (3), Canada (2), Colombia (2) and Mexico (2).

USBC provided wire-to-wire live streaming coverage of the event on BOWL.com, and recorded segments can be viewed at www.ustream.tv/usbc.