INDIANAPOLIS – Jason Belmonte and Bill O’Neill took the lead after 28 combined games of qualifying Thursday at the 2020 Mark Roth-Marshall Holman PBA Doubles Championship.

Belmonte and O’Neill, who won the event in 2018, used a strong second round to grab the top spot going into Friday’s Baker match play. The pair totaled 6,692, a 239 average, at Royal Pin Woodland.

“It’s easy to trust each other when you know the other person has watched your ball go down the lane a fair bit,” Belmonte said. “We have made this show every year and look forward to match play tomorrow.”

Kyle Troup and Jesper Svensson, the event’s champions in 2017, led after the first round of qualifying earlier in the day. They kept the strikes coming on the dual patterns to total 6,677. The two handed duo averaged 238.46 over 28 games.

“I believe as a team, we had a lot of fun,” Troup said. “We have great chemistry and have been traveling on the road for the last couple of months together. We have been really looking forward to this tournament.”

Svensson, who clinched the top seed this week for the PBA Indianapolis Open show on Saturday, started perfect out of the gate with the first 300 of day in Game 1 Thursday morning. 

“We still remember that TV show back in Maine in 2017,” Svensson said. “We will keep that fresh in mind and keep us winning matches to get in the show again.”

Three-time PBA Tour champion Kris Prather and 2018 PBA Player of the Year Andrew Anderson qualified in third with 6,490. In fourth was Jakob Butturff and Osku Palermaa with 6,435.

Two-handers Tim Foy and Patrick Hanrahan had the largest block pinfall out of anyone with 3,431 in the second round to jump from 39th in Round 1 to fifth after Round 2.

Hanrahan’s final game of 299 secured the doubles team a top five spot going into Friday’s match play as Foy and Hanrahan averaged a whopping 245.07 in the second round.

Left-handers Matt McNiel and Anthony Pepe secured the sixth spot, while right-handers Marshall Kent and EJ Tackett finished seventh. Canadians Zack Wilkins and Patrick Girard qualified in eighth.

Nick Pate/Chris Sloan, Andrew Cain/Wesley Low Jr., Anthony Simonsen/Dom Barrett, Brad Miller/Kyle Sherman, Dino Castillo/Sean Lavery-Spahr, Michael Davidson/Matt Kuba, Arturo Quintero/Ildemaro Ruiz and Zac Tackett/Stephen Hahn all qualified into Friday’s Baker format match play, which will be live on FloBowling starting at Noon Eastern.