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Near-record block lifts Kayla Smith to top seed of 2025 PWBA Anniversary Open; Josie Barnes, Verity Crawley, Nora Johansson, Rocio Restrepo also make stepladder finals
JEFF RICHGELS | Posted: Friday, July 11, 2025 7:00 pm
The stepladder finals for the 2025 PWBA Anniversary Open, left to right and in order from first to fifth: Kayla Smith, Josie Barnes, Verity Crawley, Nora Johansson, and Rocio Restrepo. Photo by PWBA.
Kayla Smith came into Friday’s fourth and final qualifying round of the 2025 PWBA Anniversary Open in 10th place at 4,076 for 18 games, just 16 pins ahead of 13th as the top 12 advanced from the third round.
The top five would advance to the stepladder finals after the fourth round, and Smith was only 16 pins out of fifth, though she was 104 pins behind leader Josie Barnes.
The left-hander erased all of that and soared to the top seed with a near-record block of 1,593 on games of 268,...