AURORA, Ill. – Anthony Simonsen entered the day with a 176-pin lead after qualifying for the 2019 FloBowling PBA Illinois Open. After 16 games of match play Friday, that lead was just six pins.

A day after winning the PBA Bear Open, Simonsen was back on the lanes again with the top 24 for two rounds of match play. Simonsen posted an 8-7-1 record and now has a 44-game total of 10,306, a 228.43 average, at Parkside Lanes.

“It seems like I go through streaks where I’m either bowling well in the middle of the round and not so well at the beginning and end, or like I did tonight where I’m bowling well at the beginning and end but not in the middle,” Simonsen said. “Tomorrow I’ll need to string together at least a few good games so I make the show.”

Results: PBA Illinois Open Match Play Round 2

Simonsen dropped out of the lead for a bit Friday but found his way back into the top spot in the final game when he defeated Jake Peters, 268-229. It was just enough to move ahead of EJ Tackett, who won his final game 259-216 over Tommy Jones, by a few pins.

“Everybody out here on tour has the physical ability but the players who can deal with the mental grind, especially in a tournament like this, are going to have the advantage,” Simonsen said. “You’re using different equipment and playing totally different lines so it kind of multiplies the variables you might normally have to deal with.”

Tackett, the runner-up in the Bear Open, sits in second place with 10,300 after going 9-6-1 in matches. Jason Belmonte is in third place after posting an 11-5 record with 10,238.

Bill O’Neill, who shot a 300 game in the second round of match play, is fourth with 10,222 after going 11-4-1. PBA Wolf Open champion Sean Rash is fifth with 10,200 and sits 70 pins ahead of Jason Sterner, who is sixth.

The top five players after eight final games of match play will advance to the stepladder finals on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Eastern live on FloBowling.