The first thing about last night that I learned when arriving at the lanes was that Joy wouldn’t be bowling, but that she did pre-bowl. This was told to me by Jon when I stopped into the pro shop. I had also left the towel I wipe my ball with on the ball return last week, so I had to purchase a new one. Ralph and Brian arrived between 6:15 PM and 6:30 PM, with Ralph practicing with Tony Attardo when Brian arrived, and Brian joining Tony for one game after Ralph finished his.
The league standings from last week were posted after Brian and Ralph finished warming up, and we learned that we had split the points (4 and 4) with our opponents and were sitting in 10th place. I took my warmups when the lanes were turned on for league, but after Brian threw his first shot in actual bowling, we had to wait for Donna, the league secretary, to give us Joy’s pre-bowl scores: first two games in the 150s and a 199 in the third game. The first game, a 155, was then entered for Joy as an absentee score, and each game’s scores for Joy would be entered in the same fashion at the start of that game.
To sum up my first game, I was very close to having a clean game, with a double in the 4th and 5th frames, until I chopped the 6 off of the 3-6 in the 10th, ending with a 192. The second game was looking very good, as well, with a turkey in the 3rd through 5th frames, until I left the 6-7-10 split in the 7th and the 4-7-10 split in the 10th, holding my score down to a 179. I thought the last game would start off the way the last game did last week, with my spare game deserting me, as I missed a couple of makable spares, including throwing it in the ditch on an attempt at the single 10 pin. Unlike last week, however, I recovered my game quicker, and threw my best shots of the night in collecting a hambone in the 5th through 8th frames, missing a five-bagger by stoning the 7 pin in the 9th. I left the 6-7-10 again in the 10th, but came close to converting it, ending with a 193. Brian and Ralph also both had good nights, and we ended up taking all 8 points from our opponents.
All-in-all, I was very happy with my performance. As Joy’s first two games were quite a bit under her first night average, my team sort of needed me to step up, and that I thought I did. The 564 set was better than anything I had in my winter practices (my best previous was the 554 set on Dec. 10), and, except for going “Brooklyn” on one of my strikes in the second game, all of my strikes were on good quality shots. I was playing an outside line again, and I seemed to be making all of the right adjustments. Brian, taking me home afterwards, said he really liked me on that line, and thinks I will be more consistent on it with time. Donna, who was bowling on the adjacent pair, also complimented me during the night…she asked me if this was my first league or just my first league in years, and dished out the compliment after I replied with the latter.
Result: 192-179-193=564 Average (6 games): 172
As a final aside, a couple of my other cousins, related to my bowling cousins through a sibling relationship, were up from Texas and were watching the bowling cousins during the night. I stopped to say a quick hello to them before I left for the night.
The Tenth Board 