Submitted photo Dan Reinke, pictured, finished 32nd with a 763 in the regular singles division at the USBC Open Championships this year in Las Vegas, Nevada.

NEW ULM — With more than 20,000 bowlers competing in the regular singles division of the USBC Open Championships this year, New Ulm native Dan Reinke shined with a top-40 finish.

Reinke’s 763 score over a three-game singles series on June 1 at South Point Bowling Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, saw him finish 32nd overall in the tournament.

This year was the fifth time Reinke competed in a USBC [United States Bowling Congress] Open Championship tourney, having first competed at one in 2018.

This time, Reinke started hot with a 290 and had his best-ever finish in a national tournament.

“I feel really good about it,” Reinke said. “Worked really hard throughout this year kind of throughout the bowling league season and the competitive tournament season that I bowl with a team up in the cities. It all kind of came together at the right time. It’s really tough because we go a little bit later, which is after the league bowling season ends and baseball season kind of takes the front stage, so it’s hard to kind of keep that mindset moving forward. But just tried to find anything to bowl in between that downtime and that definitely helped.

“It’s easy to just hang up the shoes for the league season and then go out to Vegas and try to bowl, I’ve done it too many times now. So trying to stay with it in that downtime really helped out this year and just kind of kept everything as sharp as possible. Would have obviously liked to have had a better showing in team and doubles [division], not only for me but my teammates as well, but glad we could put a Band-Aid on it with the singles portion.”

Reinke went to the national tournament this year with his bowling team sponsored by K&J Finishing Inc. out of Rockford, Illinois. At the tournament, Reinke and his teammates, led by squad leader Shawn Wochner, competed in three different divisions, with the team portion taking place on May 31 and the singles and doubles taking place on June 1. Each series saw bowlers compete in three games apiece.

Reinke finished his first game in the regular singles division a strike away from a perfect 300 before bowling a 225 and a 248 for his single-series score of 763.

This year’s tournament officially began on February 23 and ended on July 28, with bowlers signing up for different times to compete during the designated time frame.

Reinke’s strong start in the singles division gave him an opportunity to climb the rankings late. While he came short of replicating his standout 290, he still left Vegas in a good spot.

“I ended up shooting 290 the first game and I’m, like, ‘OK, we’ll see how this goes,'” Reinke said. “Then I shot a 225 and I realized how close I was to having a shot at taking over the lead. What it was at the time was an 805, so I just had to put up a good score there. Came up a little short, but I left Vegas in 17th.”

An added feather in Reinke’s cap came with some of the bowlers he competed with and surpassed, one being PBA bowler Anthony Simonsen, who finished in the regular singles division 76th with a 745.

“If you’re watching bowling on TV and you see all these pros and everything, they’re eligible to come out and bowl this tournament, too,” Reinke said. “So a lot of the names, if you’re familiar with bowling, there’s going to be a lot names on this list that you can see are professional bowlers, they do it 100% of the time for their living.

“I believe there were maybe 15 pros ahead of me … but No. 76 on that list, Anthony Simonsen is probably the No. 1 bowler in the world. So just for this tournament, it’s kind of cool to say that I beat Anthony Simonsen that day and a couple of other notable names that are pros currently right now.”

Next year’s USBC Open Championships take place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.