USBC Queens at Super Bowl April 26 - 30
April 26th, 2008The Queens made its debut in 1961 in Fort Wayne, Ind., as a companion event to the WIBC Championship Tournament.
With barely five months before the 1961 WIBC Tournament, a field of 122 assembled for the first Queens which was conducted at Northcrest Lanes. Janet Harman of Cerritos, Calif., emerged as the first champion. The former Navy lieutenant went undefeated in six matches and averaged 199. She defeated Eula Touchette of East St. Louis, Ill., 794-776 in the final four-game locally-televised match to earn the $1,000 first place prize.
Since that historic first event, the Queens has grown to become the premier event for elite women bowlers.
Today, as the United States Bowling Congress Queens, approximately 300 of the world’s greatest women bowlers compete in the demanding event which consists of regular format qualifying and double-elimination match play which determines the five finalists for the stepladder finals. Competition will take place at Superbowl in Canton, Mich. which also is home to the USBC Women’s Championships.
In 2007 amateur and professional star Kelly Kulick took home her first Queens title by coming from the fourth qualifying position on the live ESPN2-televise finals from AMF Carolina Lanes in the Charlotte suburb of Matthews, N.C.
She eventually defeated amateur standout Diandra Asbaty in the title match, 192-144 to win the $30,000 first prize.
With the discontinuation of the PWBA Tour in 2003, the Queens, along with the U.S. Women’s Open remain as the only major “professional” titles in women’s bowling. It offers a $200,000 prize fund and $30,000 first prize.
Only six bowlers have won multiple titles with Wendy Macpherson and Millie Ignizio are the only three-time winners. Macpherson won in 1988, 2000 and 2003 and Ignizio won in 1967, 1970 and 1971. The other multiple winners whose titles came in back-to-back years include, Donna Adamek (1979-80), Dorothy Fothergill (1972-73) and Japan’s Katsuko Sugimoto (1981-82). Aleta Sill won two titles which came in 1983 and 1985.
Sixteen past champions have been enshrined into the USBC Hall of Fame, including the event’s first champion Harman, Adamek, Patty Ann, Loa Boxberger, Pam Buckner, Cindy Coburn-Carroll, Anne Marie Duggan, Pat Costello, Fothergill, Ignizio, D.D. Jacobson, Betty Kuczynski, Sill, Judy Soutar, Lisa Wagner and Dorothy Wilkinson.
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