MOORESVILLE, N.C. – In the midst of the most difficult stretch of his career, Francois Lavoie went back to the basics. And it lead him back to the winner’s circle.

Lavoie won his second career U.S. Open title Wednesday night, defeating Sean Rash, 221-172, on a night where the brutal lane conditions shared the stage at Victory Lanes. Of the eight games bowled on the show, only three games were above 200 and Lavoie had two of them.

After winning the U.S. Open in 2016 for his first career title, Lavoie went on to win the PBA Shark Championship that year. In 2017, he won the PBA Greater Jonesboro Open for his third career title.

Since then, Lavoie has only made one championship-round appearance throughout the 2018 and 2019 seasons until he broke through again to become the 12^th bowler with at least two U.S. Open titles.

“I certainly didn’t think I was going to win a title this year,” Lavoie said. “For it to be the U.S. Open is just unbelievable.”

Lavoie said his struggles began when he tried to mimic what other guys on tour were doing. He got lost in trying to hit the ball more to increase rev rate, messed with his ball speed and tried to play the same angles as other players on tour.

The strategy didn’t work and Lavoie knew something had to change.

“I struggled physically and mentally at the wrong time right in the heart of the PBA season,” Lavoie said. “With so many different people, the ball reps here on tour, Team Canada coaches, friends, we figured out what I needed to do. We came to the conclusion that I just needed to go back to basics and do what I do. It was a hard lesson to learn.”

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In the championship match, Lavoie opened with five consecutive strikes, the longest string by any player on the night, and then stayed clean up until a meaningless 10^th frame.

Rash, meanwhile, struggled throughout and said the lanes played completely different than they had the past couple days on the 40-foot pattern.

In the semifinal, Lavoie bowled a clean game in defeating Anthony Simonsen, 214-164. The match was close through five frames before Simonsen left a 2-10 split for an open just before the commercial break.

Lavoie jumped up after the timeout and tossed back-to-back strikes to increase his lead to 39 pins and coasted from there.

In an ugly second match of the stepladder, Simonsen moved past Jason Belmonte, 187-148. Belmonte looked lined up early, starting with a strike, stone eight and strike but then lost his look. He went high on his next three frames that resulted in two opens.

By the 10^th frame, Simonsen had built a 27-pin lead despite missing a 10 pin in the ninth frame. Belmonte had a chance to force Simonsen to mark in the final frame but left a 2-8-10 on his first shot in the 10^th frame.

The 148 game was Belmonte’s lowest televised game in his career. His previous low was 156, which game in the title match of the 2013 U.S. Open in a loss to Wes Malott.

Simonsen turned up the heat in the second half of the match to move past Bill O’Neill, 226-193, in the opening match of the stepladder finals.

When the match went to the commercial break after five and a half frames, the two players had only combined for three strikes. Simonsen popped four strikes in a row after the break to build a 45-pin lead and cruise to the win.

Many of the PBA Tour players will next head to Kuwait to compete in the World Bowling Tour event there, which begins later this week.