November 4, 2011

Week 11 Recap

Game 1: 192
Game 2: 176
Game 3: 169
Series: 537
Week Avg: 179
Season Avg: 191

Summary

It was good to be back after not bowling in over two weeks. Practice started out alright, but I could tell after a few throws that there was a lot of oil along the right gutter, so missing my mark to the right was going to result in missing the pocket. I threw a few strikes and shot the 7- and 10-pins. At the end of practice, I was relatively comfortable with how the lanes were reacting.

My instincts must have been off, because my first frame resulted in a 2-7 split and I picked off the 2-pin. I brushed it off and started to throw a fairly decent ball, striking or leaving easy spares throughout the rest of the game. I was fishing for a good place to stand on the right lane because the ball just did not want to come into the pocket. I moved back a few inches, but the ball was still skidding in that oil on the outside and coming in light. I moved right a board, but then I was too high. The next time on the right lane I moved back up the few inches I adjusted earlier but stayed one board to the right and that seemed to be a good line. The left lane was coming in well, but by the end of the first game that started to hang outside too so I moved right a board on that lane as well. I stayed clean after the first frame, but couldn't manage to string any strikes together and finished with a 192.

I started the next game making a 2-4 spare and then struck in the second. I left a 5-7 split but picked that up, struck again, and then missed a 10-pin by dumping the ball in the gutter a couple of feet before the pin. I made a few more spares and mixed in another strike before missing a 7-pin in the tenth frame, finishing with a 176.

The third game started by making the 10-pin. I followed that up with a strike and another spare before missing a 4-pin. I started coming in light on the left lane resulting in a few 10-pins even though I moved back a bit, and the right lane was coming in a little too high even though I moved up and left a bit. I missed another 10-pin somewhere near the seventh frame and then left the 5-10 split in the tenth frame, making this the third Thursday night outing in a row where I ended the night with a split open. I finished with a 169 game and a 537 series. This was the first night all season I did not have at least one 200 game.

Lesson Learned

Fatigue + Ever-changing lane conditions = Disappointing night

You don't realized how conditioned you are for bowling until you take a few weeks off and that conditioning is gone. I had a few exhausting days at work and, combined with my first night of bowling in 17 days, I was very tired by the start of the third game. To make matters worse, the lanes didn't quite change like I expected them to and my decision making wasn't at its best. I didn't feel entirely comfortable and in the end I threw only a handful of really good strike balls.

The first game was alright and I knew there was a lot of oil down the lane and little room for error. As the second game progressed, the backend started to hook a little bit more and I was hitting the pocket more consistently, but the hits just weren't carrying. I expected that my ball would grab and flatten out when shooting the 10-pin in the second game, but it didn't and fell in the gutter. Though my ball did grab in the tenth frame when shooting the 7-pin, pulling it into the gutter just short of the pin. Then to add insult to injury the ball bounced out and knocked the pin over, so I had to go through the shame of taking the spare off the scoreboard. The third game started with promise and I had good pocket hits on the left lane, but all of a sudden the ball was hitting just a bit light leaving the 10-pin.  It took me a bit by surprise because judging how the lane had progressed so far that evening I expected to eventually come in high.  That happened on the right lane instead.

Looking back, the left lane had about a four to five frame lag in oil conditions when compared to the right lane. Whatever adjustment I made on the right lane, a half game later that's where I was on the left lane. I hope that next week I will be back to my old form and a little more aware of what is going on on the lanes. The most frustrating part was that is didn't feel like a bad night until that very last frame with the split.

Oh well, part of being a good bowler is the ability to brush off nights like this week and focus on the road ahead.

1 comment:

  1. "Part of being a good bowler is the ability to brush off nights like this week and focus on the road ahead".

    Couldn't agree with that statement more, Zach. Having the ability to move past a bad night is key.

    ReplyDelete