With 16 games of match play remaining, Australia’s Jason Belmonte leads the field at the 2019 PBA Indianapolis Open, but defending champion Jakob Butturff is a close second.

Belmonte and Butturff each went 5-3 in the opening round of match play Thursday night at Woodland Bowl. Belmonte has a 26-game total of 6,146, a 230.62 average, while Butturff sits at 6,094, just 52 pins back.

The 24-player match-play field will return to the lanes Friday at 11 a.m. Eastern live on FloBowling for the second round of match play. The final round of match play will take place at 6 p.m. Eastern on Friday.

Results: PBA Indianapolis Open Match Play Round 1

Belmonte started match play strong with a 269-233 victory over BJ Moore and posted a 4-1 record before sputtering down the stretch. He closed Thursday night’s session with a 196-191 loss to Matt Sanders and a 199-182 loss to Brad Miller before edging out a 201-190 win over Martin Larsen.

Butturff, who was in third place after qualifying and 77 pins behind Belmonte, closed out match play Thursday night with a 212-188 win over Norm Duke.

Moore posted just a 2-6 record but still sits in third place with 5,965, while Wes Malott went 4-4 and has a total of 5,886. Tom Daugherty rounds out the top five with 5,874.

A tightly bunched group of 14 players sit within 200 pins of fifth place with PBA Hall of Famers Chris Barnes and Walter Ray Williams Jr. tied for ninth, 72 pins off the show. Another Hall of Famer, Duke, is in 14^th place, 112 pins back of fifth.

For the past two weeks, Belmonte has earned the top seed for the stepladder finals. Should he earn the top seed again this week, he would tie the PBA Tour record for consecutive weeks as the top seed. That record (three) is shared by Earl Anthony, Johnny Petraglia, Williams, and, most recently, Butturff.

The players are facing dual patterns this week throughout the event with the left lane conditioned with the 45-foot Dick Weber pattern and the right lane conditioned with the 38-foot Mike Aulby pattern.