A 300 in his final game Tuesday pushed three-time Professional Bowlers Association’s regional titlist Brandon Novak of Chillicothe, Ohio, into the qualifying lead in the PBA Cheetah Championship, presented by PBA Bowling Challenge Mobile Game, as well as the early lead in PBA World Championship qualifying, as the GEICO PBA World Series of Bowling VIII got underway at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno., Nev.

The Cheetah Championship is a PBA Tour title event, and it also is the first of four animal pattern qualifying stages leading to the PBA World Championship, the final major championship of the 2016 season. The World Championship will be decided live on ESPN on Sunday, Dec. 11, at 1 p.m. ET.

Novak (pictured above) rolled games of 205, 269, 268, 247, 212, 226 and 231 before capping his round with his perfect game. With a 1,958 total, he overtook early leader BJ Moore III of Greensburg, Pa., by nine pins. Novak and Moore are both 28-year-old fourth-year PBA Tour competitors who are trying for his first PBA Tour title.

“I had the front seven strikes in the last game and realized if I could shoot 300, I’d lead the tournament,” said Novak, whose highest previous finish in a PBA Tour event was a tie for ninth place in the United States Bowling Congress Masters earlier in the year.

“I practiced with two balls yesterday, and I just happened to pick the right ball today. It matched up perfectly. Then it was just a matter of making good shots and staying focused.”

Moore, a newlywed (he married Professional Women’s Bowling Association competitor T’Nia Falbo in September), was a member of the 2016 PBA League Elias Cup champion Dallas Strikers team, but he has never finished higher than sixth place in PBA Tour singles competition.

“This has always been an event where I’ve been close to making the cut, but I never could get past the edge,” Moore said.

“I worked with (long-time PBA Tour ball rep) Chris Schlemer during practice Monday and he gave me a couple of trigger points to try to make things as simple as possible. Admittedly, I have a tendency to over-think things, but with one or two things to think about, it helped me slow down and become more fluid. That’s all I worked on in practice and obviously it paid off.”

In third place was Sean Rash (left) of Montgomery, Ill., who won his 10th and 11th PBA Tour titles earlier in the year. Rash closed his round with back-to-back 279 games to finish with a 1,898 total, 20 pins ahead of Greg Ostrander of Freehold, N.J., and 27 pins ahead of EJ Tackett of Huntington, Ind.

Among the surprise contenders was Poland’s Daria Pajak (right), who finished one pin behind Tackett. A June graduate of Florida’s Webber International University bowling in her first PBA Tour event, Pajak hopes to join Liz Johnson of Cheektowaga, N.Y. (2014), and Clara Juliana Guerrero of Colombia (2013) as the third woman to advance to a Cheetah Championship television final.

She will be among the top 24 Cheetah qualifiers who will return to the National Bowling Stadium for best-of-five-game match play eliminations on Tuesday, Dec. 6 and Thursday, Dec. 8 to determine the top four players for the ESPN match play finals that will be contested on Saturday, Dec. 10, for tape-delayed telecast on Sunday, Dec. 18, at 1 p.m. ET. The Cheetah finals will be live-streamed on ESPN3 on Dec. 10 at 4 p.m. ET.

Joining Pajak in match play from the international field are Pascal Winternheimer (left), Germany (7th, 1,868), Francois Louw, South Africa (9th, 1,854), Dom Barrett (10th, 1,847) and Richie Teece (15th, 1,825) of England.

WSOB VIII competition, which includes 169 bowlers from 23 countries, continues Wednesday with qualifying in the PBA Chameleon Championship presented by HotelPlanner.com.

The Chameleon round also is the second stage in PBA World Championship qualifying. After the Scorpion and Shark Championship stages Thursday and Friday, respectively, the top 42 players based on 32-game pinfall totals will advance to the PBA World Championship cashers’ round on Sunday.

All qualifying and match play elimination rounds in the World Series are being covered live, exclusively by PBA’s online live-streaming service, Xtra Frame. For more information, click here.

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PBA Cheetah Championship – Final Qualifying Standings

Players with position, hometown and 8-game total; top 24 advance to best-of-five-game match play elimination round on Tuesday, Dec. 6. w-denotes woman.

1, Brandon Novak, Chillicothe, Ohio, 1,958
2, B.J. Moore III, Greensburg, Pa., 1,949
3, Sean Rash, Montgomery, Ill., 1,898
4, Greg Ostrander, Freehold, N.J., 1,878
5, E.J. Tackett, Huntington, Ind., 1,871
6, w-Daria Pajak, Poland, 1,870
7, Pascal Winternheimer, Germany, 1,868
8, Brad Miller, Maryland Heights, Mo., 1,857
9, Francois Louw, South Africa, 1,854
10, Dom Barrett, England, 1,847
11, Mitch Beasley, Clarksville, Tenn., 1,836
12, Mike Wolfe, New Albany, Ind., 1,834
13, Chris Barnes, Double Oak, Texas, 1,832
14, Matthew O’Grady, South Amboy, N.J., 1,826
15, Richie Teece, England, 1,825
16 (tie), Anthony Simonsen, Princeton, Texas, and Dave Wodka, Beavercreek, Ohio, 1,812
18, ss-Ron Mohr, Las Vegas, 1,811
19, Andrew Graff, Las Vegas, 1,808
20, Marshall Kent, Yakima, Wash., 1,807
21, Joe Paluszek, Bensalem, Pa., 1,804
22, Darren Tang, San Francisco, Calif., 1,801
23, Tommy Jones, Simpsonville, S.C., 1,800
24, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Oxford, Fla., 1,798

Missed Cut:
25, Bob Learn Jr., Erie, Pa., 1,797
26, Zhiyong Wang, China, 1,796
27, Thomas Larsen, Denmark, 1,793
28, Jakob Butturff, Chandler, Ariz., 1,790
29, Patrick Girard, Canada, 1,788
30, J.R. Raymond, Bay City, Mich., 1,786
31, Cameron Weier, Tacoma, Wash., 1,777
32, Arturo Quintero, Mexico, 1,770
33, w-Liz Johnson, Cheektowaga, N.Y., 1,767
34, Rhino Page, Orlando, Fla., 1,765
35, Dick Allen, Columbia, S.C., 1,764
36, Tom Smallwood, Saginaw, Mich., 1,762
37 (tie), Kevin Donovan, Painted Post, N.Y., and Daniel Fransson, Sweden, 1,761
39, Liu Shaoyi, China, 1,756
40, Anthony Lavery-Spahr, Pasadena, Texas, 1,755
41 (tie), Tom Daugherty, Riverview, Fla., and Zeke Bayt, Westerville, Ohio, 1,753
43, Jesper Svensson, Sweden, 1,751
44 (tie), Ryan Ciminelli, Cheektowaga, N.Y., and Jason Belmonte, Australia, 1,750
46, John Furey, Freehold, N.J., 1,747
47, Chris Arcaro, Wilmington, N.C., 1,741
48, Patrick Allen, South Salem, N.Y., 1,738
49 (tie), Patrick Dombrowski, Parma, Ohio, and Brett Cunningham, Clay, N.Y., 1,737
51 (tie), Jesse Buss, Belvidere, Ill.; Carsten Warming Hansen, Denmark, and Kyle Troup, Taylorsville, N.C., 1,730
54 (tie), Noel Vazquez, Sacramento, Calif.; Jason Sterner, Cocoa, Fla., and Jake Peters, Henderson, Nev., 1,727
57, Wes Malott, Pflugerville, Texas, 1,724
58, Ryan Graywacz, Feeding Hills, Mass., 1,722
59, D.J. Archer, Friendswood, Texas, 1,719
60 (tie), Ryan Shafer, Horseheads, N.Y.; Bill O’Neill, Langhorne, Pa., and Jon Van Hees, Charlestown, R.I., 1,718
63, Sam Cooley, Australia, 1,714
64 (tie), w-Anggie Ramirez, Colombia, and Cody McCowin, Daytona Beach, Fla., 1,713
66, Brad Angelo, Lockport, N.Y., 1,712
67, Parker Bohn III, Jackson, N.J., 1,711
68 (tie), Kristopher Prather, Milton, Fla.; Amleto Monacelli, Venezuela, and Tyler Jensen, Ft. Worth, Texas, 1,710
71, Markus Jansson, Sweden, 1,709
72, Bryon Smith, Roseburg, Ore., 1,708
73, Matthew Wozney, Clayton, Del., 1,706
74, PJ Haggerty, Roseville, Calif., 1,705
75 (tie), Xu Chen, China, and Francois Lavoie, Canada, 1,700
77, Benjamin Canfield, Tempe, Ariz., 1,698
78, Jeff Evans, Supply, N.C., 1,697
79 (tie), David Haynes, Las Vegas, and Anton Ahlgren, Sweden, 1,694
81 (tie), Steven Arehart, Chesapeake, Va.; Michael Wittendorff, Denmark; Nathan Bohr, Wichita, Kan., and Blake Demore, Springfield, Mo., 1,693
85, Osku Palermaa, Finland, 1,692
86 (tie), Graham Fach, Canada, and Matthew McNiel, Minneapolis, Minn., 1,690
88 (tie), Chris Bolosan, Newport News, Va., and Stuart Williams, England, 1,688
90 (tie), Craig LeMond, Jasper, Ind., and Lucas Legnani, Argentina, 1,687
92 (tie), Kristian Rogers, Salisbury, N.C., and Pontus Andersson, Sweden, 1,685
94, Tom Hess, Urbandale, Iowa, 1,684
95 (tie), Martin Larsen, Sweden, and Ronnie Russell, Marion, Ind., 1,683
97, Eugene McCune, Munster, Ind., 1,681
98, Michael Haugen Jr., Phoenix, 1,677
99, Ildemaro Ruiz, Venezuela, 1,676
100, Chris Loschetter, Avon, Ohio, 1,674
101, Mik Stampe, Denmark, 1,670
102, Lonnie Waliczek, Wichita, Kan., 1,661
103, Johnathan Bower, Middletown, Pa., 1,657
104 (tie), Aaron Lorincz, Belleville, Mich., and Zhongli Mi, China, 1,653
106, Casey Knutson, Sparks, Nev., 1,652
107, Scott Newell, Deland, Fla., 1,651
108, Nicholas Kruml, Downers Grove, Ill., 1,646
109, Wang Hongbo, China, 1,642
110 (tie), John Szczerbinski, N. Tonawanda, N.Y., and Pete Weber, St. Ann, Mo., 1,635
112 (tie), Mike DeVaney, Winchester, Calif., and Brett Cooper, Denver, 1,634
114, Jonathan Hocsman, Argentina, 1,632
115, Mohamed Janahi, Bahrain, 1,626
116, A.J. Johnson, Oswego, Ill., 1,619
117, Kim Bolleby, Thailand, 1,618
118 (tie), Chris Warren, Grants Pass, Ore., and Josh Blanchard, Mesa, Ariz., 1,617
120, Lou Yi, China, 1,616
121, Qi Wankang, China, 1,615
122, w-Ashly Galante, Palm Harbor, Fla., 1,614
123, Anthony Pepe, Elmhurst, N.Y., 1,602
124, Mike Scroggins, Amarillo, Texas, 1,596
125, Isaac Russell, Malaysia, 1,595
126, Connor Pickford, Charlotte, N.C., 1,594
127, ss-Kevin Croucher, Grants Pass, Ore., 1,593
128, Martin Bedford, Altus, Okla., 1,589
129, Lars Nielsen, Denmark, 1,586
130 (tie), LeVinc Samuels, Bermuda; Jonathan Wilbur, North Clarendon, Vt., and Hashim Guinomla, Philippines, 1,584
133, Zhang Haitao, China, 1,582
134, Devin Bidwell, Wichita, Kan., 1,576
135, David Krol, Nixa, Mo., 1,571
136, Yong-Jin Gu, South Korea, 1,567
137, Tim Foy Jr., Seaford, Del., 1,566
138, Wang Dali, China, 1,565
139, Ray Teece, England, 1,564
140, w-Ingelimar Beasley, Venezuela, 1,558
141, Gary Faulkner Jr., Memphis, Tenn., 1,553
142, David Maycock, Bermuda, 1,546
143 (tie), Shawn Maldonado, Houston; Clint Land, Houston, and w-Liz Kuhlkin, Rotterdam, N.Y., 1,544
146 (tie), Agustin Aranguren, Argentina, and Will Vidulich, Parsippany, N.J., 1,538
148, Steve Ford, Seaside, Ore., 1,525
149 (tie), Andrew Cain, Phoenix, and Andres Gomez, Colombia, 1,507
151, Paul Moor, England, 1,506
152, Tobias Börding, Germany, 1,502
153, Michael Duran, Banning, Calif., 1,501
154, w-Summer Jasmin, Beckley, W.Va., 1,498
155, Adam Wilson, Reno, Nev., 1,492
156 (tie), Jeremy Mooney, West Palm Beach, Fla., and w-April Lord-Wittig, Steilacoom, Wash., 1,483
158, w-Jill Creamer, Folsom, Calif., 1,465
159, Derek Handy, Redmond, Wash., 1,452
160, Douglas Hankins, Boise, Idaho, 1,440
161, J.T. Jackson, Sherman Oaks, Calif., 1,395
162, Russell Lopes, Carmichael, Calif., 1,384
163, Mateo Hernandez, Argentina, 1,381
164, Stephen Bennett, Hampton, Va., 1,377
165, Rickai Binns, Bermuda, 1,334
166, Tim Frenz, Dickinson, N.D., 1,326
167, Xiao Lu, China, 1,260
168, Cody Copeland, Abilene, Texas, 1,240
169, Adrian McCoy, British Virgin Islands, 1,213

300 games (4) – Jake Peters, Mitch Beasley, Brandon Novak, Matt O’Grady.