March 29, 2025 Nolan Hughes

Bill O’Neill and Justin Knowles advanced in the USBC Masters preliminary round to meet Gary Haines and Anthony Simonsen in Sunday’s championship round, airing at 12 p.m. Eastern time on FOX.

O’Neill will face Knowles in the opening match of the stepladder finals at Strobl Arena inside Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, Mich.

The winner will move on to face Simonsen, a three-time Masters champion.

The top-seeded Haines, who went undefeated in the double-elimination match play bracket, will have to be defeated twice in the championship match.

O’Neill led qualifying, but fell to Graham Fach in the third round of the winner’s bracket. He tallied three wins in the elimination bracket, including one over EJ Tackett, to advance to Saturday afternoon’s preliminary round, where he defeated Bailey Mavrick and earned his revenge against Fach.

O’Neill escaped his first match against Mavrick by two pins. Mavrick fouled on a 10-pin conversion, and got two pins while working on consecutive strikes. Those lost pins proved to be a fatal mistake for the 26-year-old against the soon-to-be PBA Hall of Famer.

In his next match, O’Neill made two gaffes of his own in his 10th frame. His first shot in the 10th went Brooklyn but struck, then he missed a 10-pin that would’ve shut out Fach. 

Fach, who needed three strikes to tie O’Neill, struck on his first shot before leaving a 9-pin.

“It's weird to win a match, and all I can think about is the stupid stuff that I did,” O’Neill said. “I just kept telling myself ‘don't try to make it strike, just let it go,’ and sure enough I tried to make it strike. My mind started to wander a little bit for some reason. When I come back tomorrow, I need to get back into my process.”

Dom Barrett defeated Nate Stubler, 215-193, in the first match on the other side of the bracket before running into a Knowles-shaped buzzsaw. Knowles started with a spare, then fired eight consecutive strikes to shut out Barrett before the 10th frame.

Knowles, who grew up in the Detroit suburb of Warren and resides in Okemos, has previously won the Detroit Masters and Michigan Masters at Thunderbowl Lanes. He will look to complete what he called the “Tom Strobl Trifecta” with a USBC Masters title on Sunday.

Strobl, the former proprietor of Thunderbowl Lanes, passed away in 2023 and the arena bay inside Thunderbowl Lanes was renamed in his honor.

“Tom was Detroit bowling in a nutshell,” Knowles said. “I grew up living in Detroit until I was 15, and he was everywhere. Even back then, he was a legend. It feels special to come back and reinvent myself in the city. Doing it for him would mean a lot.”

Haines, a 36-year-old native of Babylon, N.Y., went 6-0 in match play to earn the top seed. He will need to be defeated twice in Sunday’s championship match, while only needing one win to claim his first career PBA Tour title.

Haines defeated Simonsen in the final match of the winner’s bracket, relegating Simonsen, a three-time Masters champion, to the No. 2 seed.

More information on the 2025 USBC Masters is available here.

Preliminary Round Results

Match One: Bill O’Neill def. Bailey Mavrick, 211-209
Match Two: Dom Barrett def. Nate Stubler, 215-193
Match Three: Bill O’Neill def. Graham Fach, 217-207
Match Four: Justin Knowles def. Dom Barrett, 255-199

Championship Round

Match One: Bill O’Neill vs. Justin Knowles
Match Two: Anthony Simonsen vs. winner of Match One
Championship: Gary Haines vs. winner of Match Two (Haines must be defeated twice)

USBC Masters Schedule

Thunderbowl Lanes | Allen Park, MI

All times Eastern

Sunday, March 30
12:00 p.m. (FOX) — USBC Masters stepladder finals

More information on the 2025 USBC Masters is available here.