And almost had my first honor score in the same night! I had hoped to make this a BowlSpace exclusive, but they changed the blog feature there so that new posts require moderator approval (likely an anti-spam measure), and I didn’t want to keep my regular blog readers waiting too long for this. I’ve expanded on what I wrote on BowlSpace, however, so consider this a treat. 
My Week 3 bowling, frame-by-frame (Links to series sheet on BowlSK)
The night started innocently enough, and it looked early on like my run of bad games would continue, but I had four in a row in the middle of the game after moving inside; however, I limped home with a couple of splits late for a 174. I felt on the second ball of the 10th frame that I was losing my feel for my timing while trying to concentrate on being good with it, and that caused a “Big 4,” I thought.
I bore down on my concentration on my timing after that end, however, and it paid off, as I ran off the next ten in a row to start the second game. I actually thought I had my nerves under control on the 11th shot, but my heart was still racing, and I couldn’t completely keep from throwing the shot a bit fast, and left a wide 2-7 as a result. I converted the split for a 288, 20 pins better than my previous personal best game. It took me nearly 20 years to improve on that 268, but keep in mind the length of time that I had been away from bowling, as well.
I still needed a strong game for my first 700 series, however, and I calmed down enough after my honor score threat to throw four of the first five strikes. A miss of a single 10 gave me pause, but I didn’t panic, as I continued to throw well, and came up in the 10th needing the first two strikes to virtually cinch 700. The first shot in the 10th was light, but I got one of those “mixer” type strikes that I like. I then flushed the second shot, meaning I only needed to keep it on the lane for my goal, and I threw another good shot, but left a blow-out 7 for a 245 final game and a 707 series.
After the 288, and again at the end of the night, I made it a point to thank Tony Attardo, who brought up the timing issue the other morning, and I also received congratulations from my other friends in both Wednesday night leagues, as well as Ray, who was in the pro shop last night. I certainly hope this isn’t the only 700 I ever throw.
Result: 174-288-245=707
Average (9 games): 190
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 580
As for the team, John and Eileen backed up my 288 by both being over average themselves, and they continued that in the third game, as well. Our opponents had one bowler who was averaging in, so looking at the recap and estimating the result using the “over average” method, I think we took the last two games and total.
