Aug. 8, 2016
We can now add “Professional Women’s Bowling Association Champion” to Josie Earnest’s lengthy resume.
The Vanderbilt assistant bowling coach won the PWBA’s Rochester Open Sunday, beating Shannon O’Keefe in the title match to claim her first professional championship.
The victory continued a spectacular summer for the Vandalia, Ill., product, who just last week was selected for Team USA to compete at the Pan American Bowling Confederation in Colombia this next month.
Earnest had won the three seed in Rochester last month behind top-seed O’Keefe, No. 2 seed Clara Guerrero and ahead of four-seed Carolyn Dorin-Ballard. The final step ladder was delayed a few weeks so that CBS-TV could capture the finals along with three other major events in one place and televise August 23.
Earnest admitted she wasn’t sharp in the warm-ups but a ball adjustment and her experience helped get her properly focused.
“I just wanted to get out of that first match,” she says. “After a few frames I was able to shed any nerves and was able to get comfortable.”
The veteran Dorin-Ballard meanwhile was struggling and Earnest was able to advance with a comfortable victory, 187-159.
The tightest match came against Guerrero when the game wasn’t decided until the tenth frame. Earnest struck in six of the first eight frames against the Colombian and prevailed 238-214.
The championship game “felt closer than it was” according to Josie, who said the pauses in action for television’s commercial breaks gave the contest a different vibe. Earnest had a four-bagger and O’Keefe opened in the sixth to highlight the 229-180 romp.
“I worked on having fun,” Earnest said. “In junior bowling there are BIF patches – Bowling is Fun – and I thought about those. I tried to focus on enjoying the moment. In college, the televised games flashed by quickly and I didn’t want that to happen again.”
When the victory was secured by the ninth frame, Earnest said she was able to soak in the moment in the tenth. That feeling didn’t include a thought about the winner’s check, which didn’t occur to her until having dinner well after departing the bowling center.
Earnest credits old-fashioned hard work for her summer of success. “I committed last fall to working on my game,” Josie says. “Our lanes on campus were a big help. I would get to at my office by 6 a.m. many days and practice for 90 minutes before anyone else arrived. The beginning of my season was not so stellar – in fact it was a bit disappointing – but eventually things fell into place.”
The win qualifies Earnest for the 16-player Tournament Championship next month in Virginia. After that she’s off to the PABCON before easing off her own game to help develop Vanderbilt’s college team.
