EJ Tackett averaged more than 243 on Sunday as he took the top seed for match play at the 2021 PBA Cheetah Championship.

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Tackett finished the 10 games of qualifying with 2,434 at AMF University Lanes in Tampa, Florida. The top 16 players in the field advanced into the best-of-five match play on March 15.

Tackett will face Chris Via, who earned the No. 16 seed, in the Round of 16, which will be broadcast live on FloBowling next week.

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A 13-time PBA Tour champion, Tackett will be looking to win his first title since the summer of 2019 when the Round of 16, Round of 8 and television finals all take place on March 15 for the Cheetah Championship.

The Cheetah qualifying was the first day of competition at the 2021 PBA World Series of Bowling and the field will be back on the lanes Monday at Noon Eastern for the first round of qualifying in the PBA Chameleon Championship.

Defending Cheetah champion Sean Rash earned the second seed with 2,389, while Marshall Kent was third with 2,360. Nick Pate fired 2,346 to finish fourth, while Anthony Simonsen rounded out the top five with 2,330.

Here are a look at the Round of 16 matchups, which will be broadcast live on FloBowling on March 15:

• No. 1 EJ Tackett vs. No. 16 Chris Via
• No. 2 Sean Rash vs. No. 15 Scott Newell
• No. 3 Marshall Kent vs. No. 14 Kris Koeltzow
• No. 4 Nick Pate vs. No. 13 Christopher Sloan
• No. 5 Anthony Simonsen vs. No. 12 Patrick Dombrowski
• No. 6 Michael Tang vs. No. 11 AJ Johnson
• No. 7 Kris Prather vs. No. 10 Mykel Holliman
• No. 8 Sam Cooley vs. No. 9 Brad Miller

Qualifying for the animal pattern events will also be used to determine which players advance into the cashers round for the season’s third major, the PBA World Championship. It also determines the teams that advance to match play for the Mark Roth-Marshall Holman PBA Doubles Championship.