BUTLER TWP — These guys mean business.

Defending Pennsylvania State Bowling Association team scratch champion captain Andy Neuer and teammate Bruce Hollen — both former PBA Tour bowlers — participated in the state tourney’s first available weekend this year at Family Bowlaway and Freeway Lanes.

“We’ll be back in May with our full team,” Neuer, 46, of Milton said. “We’re kinda checking things out this weekend.

“The shot’s OK, but the approaches are tough. There wasn’t much of a slide. It’s probably the humidity with the way the weather’s been. Next time we’re here, it will probably be different.”

Next time they’re here, it will be with the full five-man contingent that won last year’s tournament — the quintet’s first PSBA team title.

None of the five — Neuer, Hollen of Upper Falls, Md., Dave Schley of Valley View, T.J. Trout of Pottstown and Jim Tomek of Harrisburg — live near each other.

“We all met each other at the U.S. Open (bowling tournament) in Chicago in 1984,” Neuer recalled. “We’ve kept in touch, met up again at tournaments and finally started bowling together.”

Neuer has averaged between 240 and 250 and carried a PBA card from 1983 through 2001. He finished second in the USBC national tournament in singles five years ago in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Hollen, 51, carries a 219 average and carried a PBA card from 1982-98. He’s won three regional PBA titles, competed in 16 national tournaments, cashed eight times and reached the finals on four occasions.

“My father was a bowler and got me started young,” Hollen said. “I had a duckpin ball with holes drilled in it when I was 3.”

Neuer owns a 16-lane bowling house, Imperial Lanes, in Milton and bowls in seven leagues, including three in one day.

“I’m always at the place, So I might as well bowl while I’m there,” he said. “I grew up in a house across the street from that bowling alley.

“Since I was a kid, I wanted to own that place. I love this sport.”

So will this tandem find its way to a state title in Butler?

“Who knows? That’s the beauty of bowling,” Hollen said. “You step on the lanes, one day to the next, you never know what’s going to happen.”