ARLINGTON, Texas – Bryanna Coté has many fond memories of competing at Golden Pin Lanes in Tucson, Arizona, the site of this week’s Professional Women’s Bowling Association (PWBA) Tucson Open.
Now, for the first and final time, she will compete as a professional in the center she’s called home.
The PWBA Tour continues its West Coast swing this week at the PWBA Tucson Open. Competition begins Friday with two eight-game qualifying blocks before the field is cut to 32 players. After eight additional games Saturday morning, the top 12 players will bowl a final six-game block to decide the four players who will compete in the stepladder finals.
BowlTV.com, the exclusive livestreaming home of the PWBA Tour, will have wire-to-wire live coverage of the event, including Saturday’s stepladder finals at 5:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m. Eastern).
Coté, from Red Rock, Arizona, has looked forward to the opportunity to compete at Golden Pin Lanes for more than a year, when the initial possibility of bringing a PWBA stop to Tucson arose. Coté then began to do her part to encourage all local bowlers and fans to support the stop and even compete in the Bowl With The Pros events.
“When I knew the possibility of Tucson was in the mix, I was doing everything I could to encourage them to have a stop,” said Coté, who won the 2016 PWBA Lexington Open. “It will be great not just for the sport, but for the town. We have a lot of residents and senior citizens that love to bowl, and they will come out and watch.
“So, I was really excited when it did hit the schedule and it was announced that I get to bowl at home. I’ll have a lot of support this week, getting to bowl in my home center in front of my family and friends.”
This week will be different in many ways for Coté, though most of the differences will be positive. She’ll get to sleep in her own bed and enjoy the normal routines of being home while bowling an event.
However, she will have many family and friends cheering her on, which sometimes puts too much pressure on a player. Though she’s not quite sure if she will be nervous when the event starts, she’ll be prepared for everything.
“I think I’ve prepared myself to treat it like just another event,” said Coté, who is a four-time Team USA member. “The job is the same. The task is the same. I’ll just have a larger crowd behind me. I enjoy it when people cheer and root me on. It does help, especially when you get down or have a bad game. It’s nice to have people helping you turn things around.”
While Coté’s excitement to compete is on an infinity level, this week also is bittersweet for the 33-year-old right-hander as Golden Pin Lanes is scheduled to close its doors at the end of June.
While competing in the center at the Arizona State USBC Open Championship a couple weeks ago, it dawned on her that many of those competitors would never again bowl at the center.
But, she’s thankful to have at least one more event to create new memories to add to the thousands she’s already made. She worked at the center during high school and it’s also the place she rolled an 879 series in 2014, that tied the record (since broken) for highest-three game series by a woman.
“I’m really sad to see it go because I’ve done a lot of great things in this center,” Coté said. “When I was a junior bowler, I shot my first 700 series there. I picked up my only 7-10 (split) there. I shot 879 there, too, so to see it close is really sad. I know all good things come to an end eventually but I just hope I can help it go out in a great way.
“I’m hoping for a good crowd and a good event. And I know they’re doing their best to put on a good show for us.”
While Coté would love to win, just making the stepladder finals in Golden Pin’s final event would be sort of a storybook ending.
“I’m going to take it one round at a time,” said Coté, who was a four-time National Tenpin Coaches Association First-Team All-American at Central Missouri. “I would love to make the show. And if I can do that in Golden Pin’s final tournament, it would be an awesome accomplishment.”
Along with Coté, the PWBA Tucson Open features a field of 76 bowlers with five players with ties to Tucson including PWBA member and former Central Missouri standout Amanda Falk.
Tucson’s Kyndle Farrell and Erica Lockhart will compete as non-members along with Amber Harvey of Vail.
BowlTV.com will have live coverage of this season’s PWBA Tour events, including the stepladder finals of the first six standard events including the PWBA Tucson Open. The platform also offers access to behind-the-scenes content, classic PWBA telecasts, blogs, podcasts and instructional content. Visit BowlTV.com for more information.
CBS Sports Network will televise the stepladder finals of seven events on the 2019 PWBA Tour schedule, including all four majors, and will feature three prime-time shows in August. CBS Sports Network’s coverage of the PWBA continues June 23 with the U.S. Women’s Open, the second major event of the season.
Visit PWBA.com to learn more information and for complete coverage of the 2019 PWBA Tour season.
2019 PWBA TUCSON OPEN
(At Golden Pin Lanes, Tucson, Ariz.)
(All times local)
Thursday, June 6
4 p.m. – 90-minute practice session
7 p.m. – Bowl With The Pros
Friday, June 7
9 a.m. – Eight-game qualifying block
5 p.m. – Eight-game qualifying block
(Cut to top 32 players)
Saturday, June 8
9 a.m. – Round of 32 (eight games)
(Cut to top 12 players)
2 p.m. – Round of 12 (six games)
(Cut to top four players for stepladder finals)
5:30 p.m. – Stepladder Finals live on BowlTV
