The Tenth Board

Splitting the points on the first night of a league means landing in the middle of the standings, and that worked perfectly for us, as we stand 8th place in a 16-team league, with only “Guess Who?”, our first-night opponents, ahead of us in pinfall among the 4-4 teams. Two unnamed teams, numbers 13 and 12, swept their matches (with #13 listed first by pinfall). Our second week opponents are “Vacant For Now,” which means we may have to beat a team of 150 scores, but that there could be a team in its place by the time Wednesday night rolls around.

There were not many real surprises for my team in the awards we received, as Eileen (women’s C high series), John (men’s C high series), and myself (men’s A high game) won top awards (Patrick and Carl won secondary individual awards, as well), but the big surprise was something that did not happen for my team last year…my team won a team award, that for second-place high team game. It might make sense when you consider that the league champs, runners-up, second place in half, two team high series, and a team high game were awarded before 2nd high game and a team can only win one of those awards, but it was a surprise because I couldn’t really think of a particularly high game that we had as a team. The extra $20/bowler was nice, however. Eileen also won the women’s most improved award, improving by something like 18 pins on the average that she had established at the start of the season.

The business meeting was fast-paced, but I do remember Jo-Ann Coles being elected treasurer (Mary-Ellen LaBelle, who had the position for years, wanted to step down), a rule concerning foul language was adopted, and a rule modifying how new bowlers are classified was rejected. I had also proposed going to a seven-point system, as my virtual league was run, but that proposal was not really greeted with much enthusiasm. Someone else moved to a return of the handicap basis to 80%, but that was turned down, as well.

The last item for this post is what I’ve promised…a photo of the champs:

Butz-N-Gutz (L to R): David Gomes, Jo-Ann Coles, Jim Blyth, Shawn Coles

Andy Dawson, who bowled for the team in the second half and had the back problem for the roll-off, is not shown in the photo.

“Butz-N-Gutz,” the first-half winners, won tonight’s roll-off for the Brunswick Mixed League championship, defeating “The Dynasty” by a score of 3082-2901 in a three-game, total pinfall match. Shawn Coles was the star tonight, getting his night off to a fast start with the first 8, leaving a 4 pin in the 9th frame, on the way to a 267 first game, and had a 30-clean bid ruined in the 4th frame of Game 3 by a 1-2-6-10 washout which he failed to convert, ending with a 650 series (this may be corrected in a future comment). As for how the match progressed for the teams, “Butz-N-Gutz” won the first game by 82 pins, taking the second game by 73 pins for a 155 pin lead after two games, and made it a sweep of the three games by winning by a much-closer 26 pins. It should be said that “Butz-N-Gutz” won despite one of their bowlers taking a five-pin drop due to a back problem (he was present as a spectator, however).

The league banquet is Saturday night…a photo of the winning team should follow when I get home from that.

Since the roll-off this week is known to be Butz-N-Gutz vs. The Dynasty, I decided to post this note in lieu of a formal standings update: in a week where scoring seemed to be down, I had the high game and third high series in my average division last week. The 233 was not the high game of the week, however, as David Gomes of Butz-N-Gutz, who is in the men’s B division, had a 279 game, which I believe was the fifth one in the league this season. Nice shooting, Dave!

My Week 34 bowling, frame-by-frame (Link to series on BowlSK)

This really wasn’t the kind of finish I envisioned, because I failed to get my +1. However, I like ending the season on a positive note, and a 233 in the last game was enough of a positive to satisfy me.

Result: 197-151-233=581
Final average (102 games): 186
Average for last 9 games: 189

I may not have met all of my goals for this season, but the least I usually hope for is to improve my average year-to-year, and the 186 average represents a three-pin improvement on last season in three more games than last season. I will analyze my performance more in a future post, but I will say that another goal of mine was to avoid the really bad nights: the bad nights I wanted to avoid were those where I scored less than 500 for the night, and I only had one night in that category, and that fairly early in the season. I also had a first this season…this was the first year I had more than one game of 250 or over (the 267 just after Christmas and the recent 255).

I had the only good night among my team, and that led in part to my team getting swept on the last night. It should be said, however, that some of the members of the other team did well tonight, too, especially the other Eileen in the league, Eileen Bornemann (a neighbor of John and Eileen’s who joined the league mid-season), who had a 190 first game.

As I (think I) noted in the last league night recap, we slipped back to last place, and have to face “Double D” again in a situation where we have to reverse last week’s result in order to climb out of the basement (a sweep would be good, but let’s not get greedy here ). As “The Dynasty” hold a seven point lead over “Warren’s Girls,” next week’s roll-off is now set without even waiting for the position round results: “The Dynasty” will face “Butz-N-Gutz,” the first-half winners, in a three-game, total pinfall match for the league championship.