Month: April 2008

Running drills

As per plan, I spent all of practice today going through the towel drill, and I think I got about half of my shots, maybe a couple more than that, over the towel.  Although the difference is only slight, I think I can feel the strength coming back in my wrist, which should definitely be a good sign.  As I wasn’t really worried about score today, I didn’t log my practice when I came home; as such, I am not posting an average update for this practice.

Summer league update:  Bob Hamilton told me his daughter would be bowling on his team, and that she represents the vacancy on his team.  However, a couple more bowlers without a team (but who want to bowl on the same team) have signed up, so if things hold, I will be on their team.

Cross-training #23

This West Virginia TV station site gives us a story about a charity bowling event hosted by New York Jets quarterback Chad Pennington in his Huntington, WV hometown, benefiting Pennington’s 1st and 10 Foundation. Former Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Dorsett and current Carolina Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith were participants.

Wednesday notes

  • To update the start of the Wednesday Summer Mixed League, Bob Hamilton has put together a team which currently has a vacancy. There had been one other bowler without a team on the sign-up board for the league, but he is now assigned to a team. With that in mind, I asked Marcia to give Bob the message that if he wants, I’d be more than happy to join his team. On a related note, my cousins’ team had a surprise when they registered: their younger daughter, Melissa, will be joining them.
  • I learned that Bev Bialecki, the lady who works at the control desk when I am usually practicing, has had recent surgery to remove a lump on her head. I have sent her a get-well card.
  • I was prepared to purchase a dumbbell set for wrist curls at the local Dick’s Sporting Goods today, but I thought to check the Sears web site and found out that they sold single hand weights. Needless to say, I swung by Sears and bought a 5 lb. hand weight, which was an $8 item.

April 2008 NEBA at Westgate Lanes

As reported on NEBA’s site, Derek Pontes won his third NEBA title this weekend at Westgate Lanes, defeating Chris Joliceour 225-202 in the championship match. As I was there for much of yesterday’s action, I can report that Mike Rose Jr., sticking around for the tournament after Saturday’s exhibition match, edged out Alex Aguiar, his opponent in the match, by one pin for the top spot in qualifying, but both of their tournaments were finished after the second round of match play. Brian Gaskill, Bill Major, and Jason Sherwood were the other local qualifiers.

Alex Aguiar vs. Mike Rose Jr. recap

I remembered to have a scoresheet printed up after the match this time, so this recap will be a bit more detailed than the one I gave for the match between Sean Richard and Mark Roth back in December. 😀

In the first game, Rose stayed clean, but wasn’t putting together strikes like he could, getting doubles in the third and fourth frames, and again in the sixth and seventh before closing out the game with three strikes in the tenth for a 223. Aguiar opened the game with a turkey before chopping the 3 pin off of the 3-6-10 leave. He recovered, however, putting together a hambone in the fifth through eighth frames en route to a 236.

Rose started the second game with a five-bagger, and Aguiar was keeping contact with him until he left the 2-8-10 in the eighth frame. Aguiar did close the game out with a hambone for a 227, however, while Rose finished up with a 245 for the second game win.

After going strike-spare to start the third game, Rose racked up a four-bagger and it appeared that he would get through thirty frames clean. However, similar to Aguiar in the second game, Rose left the 2-8-10 split in the eighth frame, which ruined the bid. The third game was close in the tenth frame, at which point Rose struck out while Aguiar could only manage nine-spare-nine, giving Rose the final game 225-216. Three game totals: 693 for Mike Rose Jr., 679 for Alex Aguiar.

I got a couple of photos with both bowlers after the match…first, me with Mike Rose Jr. (I’m in the t-shirt…look familiar? 😀 )

And with Alex Aguiar…photo came out a bit dark, but fortunately, I could increase the brightness in my favorite photo editor. 🙂

Thanks to both Mike and Alex for putting on another good exhibition match at Westgate Lanes. 😀

Tommorow’s plan: As the meeting of the Mass Imperial Syndicate (my FanForce chapter, which is a Star Wars fan group) has been postponed until next Sunday, this frees me up to hit the lanes tomorrow to catch some of the action in the NEBA tournament. If I stay until the end, I should have results from that then, otherwise, I’ll wait until they’re posted on NEBA’s site.

Two more sites added to sidebar list

Two more bowling sites have been added to the sidebar list…

“Joe Slowinski’s Tips” at bowlingknowledge.info is the site of this Top 100 coach. Be warned however: this site is for the more advanced bowler.

“Bowling’s Bookstore” is an online bookstore, offering a wide variety of bowling-related books and videos, including specialized material for the bowling proprietor and pro shop operator (including a video series on bowling ball fitting and drilling).

Taking a step back

I spent pretty much all of practice today working on keeping my left arm in, so I wasn’t really focusing on score today, but 2 games ended up being under my practice average, so I kind of regressed, but I’m OK with that…sometimes you have to take a step back in order to get better, and with my return to league bowling approaching, I want to use the remaining time in the winter season to work on my game.  I already have enough of an idea of where I stand after having 78 games of “official” practice under my belt, so I’m not so concerned about practice score now.  In my next practice (not next week, as per note below), I will probably work on the towel drill.

Result:  136-148-173=457

Running average (78 games):  163  Last 9 average:  153

Holiday note:  Next Monday is the Patriots’ Day holiday in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  As schools in the state also take a vacation that week, Westgate Lanes is likely to treat Monday as a holiday and charge the holiday rate (meaning no half-price special).  Being ever mindful of my budget, I will therefore take the week off.

Edit to NAT post:  As I alerted in my last post, I have edited that post with the name of the bowler who shot the 289 game in the NAT tournament yesterday.

Exhibition match Saturday:  In connection with this coming weekend’s NEBA tournament at Westgate Lanes, USA Bowling Pro Shops will hold an exhibition match on Saturday between Alex Aguiar of North Dartmouth, who recently cashed in the US Open and was also the winner of the 2004 Storm Las Vegas Challenge, and Mike Rose Jr., the 2007 USBC Open All-Events champion.  Both bowlers will hang around after the match for autographs and to answer bowling questions.  The match will begin at 3:30 PM EDT.

Initial meeting with NAT staff

As planned, I got an early start to my day and went to the lanes to meet with Jay Mantere, the tournament director for the Northeast Amateur Tournament. I mostly let him know about this blog’s existence and that I had the NAT’s site linked. I told him I may be bowling in the NAT in the future, but after learning that they will not accept summer averages for entry, I had to admit it would be a while before I did so.

I hung around a bit to watch the first game of the 10:30 AM qualifying squad, mostly at the pair to which Chris Mark was assigned. Before I left, Bob Hamilton alerted me that someone had shot a 289 with the first 10 in a row. I told Bob that I mostly reported the “real” honor scores (300, 299, 800 series), so I didn’t really ask for a name, but where I’m seeing Bob tomorrow at practice, I will probably relent (especially where I was in the building when it was shot) and get the name; expect an edit to this post tomorrow.

EDIT: It was Brian Gaskill who shot the 289 in the first squad.

Unplanned visit

I made a brief, unplanned visit to the lanes today because I thought I forgot to put my rosin bag back in my equipment bag after my lesson the other day. An inventory of the contents of my locker found that the rosin bag was in there, however. I did add two things to the arsenal: an old dish towel for use during towel drills (which I brought with me), and a shoe brush for when I slip in my slide (a $4 item at the pro shop).

Tomorrow’s plan is to head back there in the morning to meet the Northeast Amateur Tournament staff. It will be my only opportunity to do so for a while, as they plan to take a break during the summer and resume operations in the fall.

Another thing that is now on the “to-get” list is a dumbbell set, as “CoachJim” on the forums recommended wrist curls for me to build strength in my wrist. I should be able to get one at the local Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Tournament note: The Brockton USBC Association will run their first Hall of Fame Classic singles tournament at Westgate Lanes on Sunday, June 29. Entry flyers should be available at every bowling center under the Brockton USBC Association’s jurisdiction.

First coaching session

I had my first coaching session with Ray today. During most of the early part of the session, he had me bowl while filming me on his camcorder from different angles. He also put a piece of yellow tape on the ball just under my finger holes to help determine whether my fingers stayed under the ball.

When we viewed the “before” video, we determined that my timing was good, which was one area I was worried about in making the transition from a four-step delivery to a six-step delivery. Most of my problems were of the leverage variety. The tape showed that my left arm was going well outside of my body and my fingers were coming on top of the ball, the combination of which led to dropping the ball behind the foul line.

Ray had me shoot about 12 shots concentrating on bringing my left arm in, and about 12 more doing the oft-mentioned towel drill, where you concentrate on getting the ball to clear a towel placed in front of the foul line. While Ray was watching me go through the drills, he stopped me and had me try on a wrist brace, which also seemed to help. In filming the “after” video, I had 7 out of 12 strikes; I wasn’t crossing over as much, and I was also carrying my light hits, which had also been a problem. All-in-all, I shall consider this first coaching session “very productive.” I may or may not go back to Ray in about a month, but my summer practices will definitely focus on the two problems that we isolated.

Feeling good

I wanted to have a practice I could feel good about before seeing Ray on Thursday, and I got just that.  My score was only just in the 500s, but I felt I was more or less on line, and I was making my single pin spares consistently, especially the pesky 10 pin.  For the 10 pins, I was setting up around the 32 board (I learned from “CoachJim” from the forums and chat that you count the boards from the gutter on the same side as your bowling hand) and targeting the 10 board (second arrow).  That allowed me plenty of room for the ball to hook and still hit the pin more or less full (and yes, I’ll still be getting a spare ball to shoot straight at those fairly soon).  In fact, my only spare misses were multi-pin spares today.

I kind of slipped up in last game, pretty literally, as I felt my left (slide) foot slip in my slide on one shot and thoughtlessly wiped the slide pad on that shoe with my big towel, which had sweat on it.  That caused me to stick, but fortunately I had a slide powder bag in my equipment bag from my previous bowling life, so I dabbed my slide pad w/ some of that and wiped it off again, this time making sure the part of the towel I did it with was dry.  The experience was enough to cause me to worry about my footing the rest of the game, though, and I only managed a 152 even though I had a double in the middle of the game.

Result:  181-174-152=507

Running average (75 games):  163  Last 9 average:  154

If I can find the Massachusetts USBC Youth Association’s web site, I should have results from this past weekend’s scholarship tournament at Westgate Lanes soon.