Week 19 Recap

Game 1: 177

Game 2: 148

Game 3: 165

Series: 490

Week Avg:163

Season Avg: 192

 

I don't have the usual breakdown of this week because I cannot begin to remember everything that happened during these games, and maybe I made the subconscious decision to forget.

I started my night with a turkey and that was pretty much the highlight of the evening. I missed four 7-pins on the night, but made all of my other single pin spares, including a few 10-pins. During the second game, AKA The Magical Splits-tory Tour, I left the 4-6-7-10 and 2-8-10.  The latter split caused someone on the lane next to me to ask "How do you you even make that? I mean, how would a bowler try to make that?"  My answer was to just accept the fact that you will only get two pins . . . and then I chopped it and only got one.

This was the first night in a long time where I was just lost on the lanes. I was in the pocket, but I couldn't dial it in enough to strike like I wanted to. After the first three balls I started running high and spent the rest of the night trying to reign it in. I moved my body up, I moved my body left, I moved my mark up, I moved my mark left, I changed my line to a more arching line, but all were temporary solutions. On a handful of good pocket hits, the messenger coming to take out the 7-pin was blocked by another pin bouncing off the left wall. I wasn't throwing a bad ball, it was just a very frustrating night compounded by bad spare shooting.

On the drive home I thought that maybe I should have tried upping my ball speed, but because I rarely use this adjustment it didn't occur to me during the game. Another solution may have been to flatten my hand so that I was more behind the ball at my release. It would have taken revs off the ball, but it would not have hooked so sharply in the backend.

This would have been an ideal night to have used my old Columbia 300 Boss Titanium. Its a little rolled out, but I think it would have cut just enough reaction to make a solid pocket hit. If you've been following at home, I pulled this ball from my bag a month ago to make room for my plastic so I could shoot 10-pins. I so rarely encounter conditions like this, so it seemed like a good trade off and I stand by my decision; however, Thursday night was an excellent lesson in why the correct equipment for the lane conditions makes a big impact on your game.

 

One positive of being over 90 pins under average for the night was that my big night the week before meant that my average only dropped by a pin. So I am back where I started this quarter at a 192 average and the last two weeks are but a memory as I look forward to this week.