April 30, 2024 Nolan Hughes

Six teams advance to September's PBA Elite League Playoffs

With the conclusion of the PBA Elite League presented by Snickers regular season, the six-team postseason field has been established.

The Las Vegas High Rollers, led by MVP Andrew Anderson, secured the top seed with a 10-4 record. The 9-5 Portland Lumberjacks earned the No. 2 seed and the second first-round bye, holding the tiebreaker advantage over the Akron Atom Splitters.

Akron will be the No. 3 seed, followed by the 8-6 Motown Muscle, 8-6 New Jersey KingPins and 5-9 Lucky Strike L.A. X.

The GoBowling Dallas Strikers and Waco Wonders each missed the postseason with records of 4-10 and 3-11, respectively.

The quarterfinals, featuring Akron vs. L.A. X and Motown vs. New Jersey, will be held Sept. 15, followed by two semifinal matches on Sept. 16 and the Elias Cup Finals on Sept. 17.

View the full postseason schedule here.

 

With a first-round bye, the High Rollers have clinched at least a top-four finish for the fourth consecutive season and all four seasons in franchise history.

Anderson and AJ Johnson have been High Rollers since the team’s foundation in 2020, while Russo joined in the team’s second season. Matt Ogle, Sean Rash and Thomas Larsen were drafted before this season.

“I feel like our team is prepared,” Anderson said. “We've treated it like business the entire time, whereas some teams may have not taken it as seriously in the beginning. It's a little harder than advertised to win matches in the PBA Elite League. Our team has done a really good job of staying organized, treating it like we want it, treating it like a job. We're having fun while we're at it, which is a bonus.”

Las Vegas will face the winner of Motown and New Jersey.

The battle for the No. 2 seed and the second bye came down to the wire between Portland and Akron, who each finished with a 9-5 record.

With Akron’s Round 14 victory over Las Vegas, the Atom Splitters forced Portland to win their own match against Lucky Strike L.A. X.

Kris Prather, who joined Portland in 2019 and kick-started their Elias Cup dominance, struck to clinch the roll-off victory.

The Lumberjacks won the tiebreaker via their head-to-head record against the Atom Splitters. Portland defeated Akron in Rounds 3 and 10 of the regular season.

Both teams will look to become the first franchise to win four Elias Cups. 

Portland has bowled for the Elias Cup in five of the past six seasons, winning the championship in 2019, 2020 and 2022. Akron, who won the Elias Cup in 2014, 2015 and 2018, has not reached the championship match since 2018.

 

The league’s winningest franchises could meet in the semifinals, but Akron will have to first defeat Jason Belmonte and L.A. X in the quarterfinals.

L.A. X snuck into the postseason with a 5-9 record. Belmonte, who was elevated to player-manager before the season, has been a member of L.A. X since the franchise’s inception in 2013.

Belmonte is still searching for his first career Elias Cup victory. With Dom Barrett as his wingman and a diverse roster, Belmonte said he feels confident about his team’s chances to make noise in Portland.

“The good news for us is when we go to Portland, we've really got nothing to lose,” Belmonte said. “I actually think that's kind of what makes this team gel a little better together is being those underdogs, knowing that the other teams are probably going to see us as not as much of a threat. That’s when we sneak in there with a win.”

The second quarterfinal match pits two teams with diverging seasons in Motown and New Jersey.

After a Round 1 loss, the KingPins rode Chris Barnes’ roll-off clincher in Round 2 to a six-game win streak. But the Marshall Kent and Packy Hanrahan-led squad sputtered down the stretch, winning just two of their final seven matches.

Motown, on the other hand, lost four of their first five matches. From there, the Muscle averaged more than 223 and won seven of their final nine matches to surge into the fourth seed. While Motown boasts the league’s best duo in EJ Tackett and Anthony Simonsen, the strong performances of Jason Sterner and left-handed Justin Knowles proved key to their turnaround.

 

 

From Rounds 7-12, L.A. X lost five of six and four consecutive matches; their only victory was against Dallas. Neither Dallas nor Waco was able to take advantage of L.A. X’s late-season swoon, as both teams also went 1-5 during that stretch.

Dallas finished one game behind L.A. and would have lost the tiebreaker, while Waco finished two games back and occupied the cellar.

Despite a 2-9 start, the Strikers led the league with a 218.75 average through Round 6 and maintained a top-three average through Round 11. Dallas’ opponent average during that stretch was a 226.18 — nearly 10 pins per game higher than the next highest team.

The losses appeared to take a toll on the team’s psyche. Dallas averaged just 186.33 over their final six games. In a cruel, too-little-too-late twist, the Strikers won two of those three matches.

Waco, the 2023 Elias Cup champions, struggled immensely in both the win column and the scoreboard.

Waco’s 201.71 average ranked last by 7.54 pins per game, while their 210.68 opponent average was just below league average. Until their Round 14 victory against New Jersey, in which Waco had already been eliminated, the Wonders did not win a non-televised match.

With the defending champions eliminated, a new champion will rise in 2024. The six teams begin their quest to hoist the Helmer Cup in September.

PBA Elite League Playoffs

Bayside Bowl in Portland, Maine

Quarterfinals | Sept. 15 at 5pm ET on FS1
No. 3 Akron Atom Splitters vs. No. 6 Lucky Strike L.A. X
No. 4 Motown Muscle vs. No. 5 New Jersey KingPins

Semifinals | Sept. 16 at 7pm ET on FS1
No. 1 Las Vegas High Rollers vs. Motown/New Jersey

Semifinals | Sept. 16 at 9pm ET on FS1
No. 2 Portland Lumberjacks vs. Akron/L.A. X

Finals | Sept. 17 at 7pm ET on FS1