SHAWN MALDONADO WINS FIRST CAREER TOUR TITLE IN PBA CHAMELEON CHAMPIONSHIP

Tampa, Fla.—Shawn Maldonado won his first career Tour title in the PBA Chameleon Championship, rolling a 250 game to defeat seven-time PBA Tour winner Jakob Butturff in the title match. Maldonado started the game with the first six strikes and never trailed in the match.

“For whatever reason coming in, I just kept feeling to myself I was going to win it,” said Maldonado.

Maldonado said he was entering the title match with a lot of confidence, but admitted later he started to get nervous during the commercial break. He struck on his first shot after the commercial, but then took the 6-9-10 off the rack for a three count in the seventh frame.

“It felt like a 30-minute commercial break,” said Maldonado. “I wanted to throw it slow but I didn’t want to throw it too slow because I got lucky with one of the slow ones on the right lane. Then I went to the left lane and it just flew off my hand. I told myself to get it together, make some good shots, you’ve been doing it all day. That’s what I did and I got the win.”

Maldonado spared in the seventh and stayed clean the rest of the way to win the title on a day in which he never lost. Maldonado went undefeated throughout nine total games, winning all six of his match play games and then posting the highest score in all three eliminator matches on FS1.

In Round of 16 best-of-five match play, No. 10 seed Maldonado defeated Sean Lavery-Spahr, three games to none. In the Round of 8, Maldonado won all three games to sweep Marshall Kent. Maldonado used the same strategy that succeeded in match play on the televised finals.

“When I bowled Sean and Marshall, we threw urethane,” said Maldonado. “Once I felt like there was enough blend in the lane from the urethane transition, I knew I was able to miss a little bit left once I got into my reactive. As long as I carried, I was fine.”

Bowling a 224 game in the opening eliminator match, Maldonado led Butturff and Zach Weidman into the next match, knocking out Jason Sterner. In the second match, Maldonado and Butturff tied at 224, advancing to the title match and leaving Weidman in third.

“I was just super happy,” said Maldonado of his reaction to winning his first national title. “I was thinking about my family during the matches. I wake up every morning doing this for them. I just want to make them proud, to make Houston proud. I have a lot of people who support me and I don’t want to let them down. I got it. I got the win.”

World Series of Bowling XII action concludes tomorrow with PBA Scorpion Championship match play live on FloBowling at noon ET. The PBA Scorpion Championship stepladder finals air tomorrow night at 8 p.m. ET on Fox Sports’ FS1.

PBA CHAMELEON CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL STANDINGS

AMF University Lanes – Tampa, Fla.

1. Shawn Maldonado, earns $30,000
2. Jakob Butturff, $15,000
3. Zach Weidman, $8,000
4. Jason Sterner, $5,000

MATCH SCORES

Match 1 – Maldonado 224, Butturff 220, Weidman 214, Sterner 184 (Sterner eliminated)
Match 2 – Maldonado 224, Butturff 224, Weidman 209 (Weidman eliminated)
Match 3 – Maldonado def. Butturff, 250-202

ABOUT THE PBA

The Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) is the world’s preeminent organization dedicated to the sport of bowling and its professional competition, with thousands of members and millions of fans throughout the world. The PBA plays host to bowling’s biggest tournaments from the PBA Tour, PBA Regional Tour, and PBA50 Tour. In 2020, the PBA launched PBA Jr., a club for elite youth bowlers under the age of 17 and the PBA Pinsiders, a membership for fans of the sport. For more information, please visit PBA.com.