Month: May 2012

May 31 Adult/Junior note

This post doesn’t fit into the “Honor Scores” category, but I did find something in the first week results of the Adult/Junior League that stood out: Shane Litchfield had a 237 high game in a 668 series, which was better than the older boys in the league. WTG Shane…you’ll have your first 7 before too long! 😀

2011-12 season recap

With all of the winter leagues having ended, it’s time to recognize everyone who performed the best this year, whether for one game, one series, or the full season, by listing the high averages, series, and games for both the men and women. As usual, average is based on a minimum of 72 games in the league, and youth bowlers were included with their gender where applicable; series consideration for the Tuesday Scratch Sportsmen and BBIS leagues was based on the first three games.

Men

Average: 232.9; Sean Richard (Westgate Mixed)
Series: 836; Carl Nordstrom (Thur. Hcp. Doubles)
Game: 300; Greg Rand (2; Boston Rhythm & Bowling, Thur. Night Patriots), Jim Donaher (2, Brockton Ten Pin), John Mayo (2, Thur. Night Patriots), Dave Chalifoux (Coke Classic), Danny Khuu (Coke Classic), Mike Fowler (Thur. Night Patriots), Rob Roy (Thur. Night Patriots), Mike Trent (Thur. Night Patriots), Jay Krushas (Thur. Night Patriots), Alex Aguiar (Tue. Scratch Sportsmen), Donie Corneau (Tue. Scratch Sportsmen), John Kunan (Westgate Mixed)

Women

Average: 211.8; Shirley Major (Thur. Hcp. Doubles)
Series: 771; Danielle Barros (Westgate Mixed)
Game: 290; Tina Gannon (Coke Classic)

If I missed mentioning a game or series that was bowled as a substitute, please let me know. As an additional note, Carl Nordstrom’s 836 series was not only the high series in the house this year, but the entire Brockton Bowling Association, as well.

Readers interested in a particular league should check the standings sheets, linked in the list on BowlerExpress. Congrats again to everyone mentioned! 😀

Bob Hamilton, Sean Richard throw perfect games

Two different perfect games to tell you about…

For the first, Bob Hamilton threw a perfect second game tonight in the Wednesday Summer Mixed League, and was actually threatening the house record after a 279 first game, but only threw a 200 third game (this may be corrected later in a comment) and only came away with a 779 series.

The second happened away from Westgate Lanes on Memorial Day, as Sean Richard had one in the Phat Doubles Tournament at AMF Silver Lanes.

Congrats to both Bob and “Seany Kash”! 😀

May 30 league night recap

My Week 3 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

I felt I needed control of the pocket tonight, so my Tropical Breeze came out of the bag for the first time since last summer. Unfortunately for the first game, I spent half of that game getting adjusted to the ball again. The ball change eventually paid off, though. Half of my problems with the 10 tonight were my thumb not wanting to come out of the spare ball; that will be something I’ll keep an eye on.

Result: 142-182-213=537
Average (9 games): 174
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 530

We were missing Matt tonight, and we won just the third game, but by enough for total and just barely, as it proved that my make of the 10 to fill the last frame was the difference, as total was won by just that pin.

I’ve told some of the bowlers tonight, but there’s been a development that may affect me for the rest of the summer that I’ll post about when the time comes.

May 29 league standings update

“Froot Loops” settled into 18th (out of a full 20 teams) after taking two points from “RPMM’s”, two points ahead of “The Oddballs” and four ahead of Team 20, our opposition tomorrow night. Team 19 has yet to lose points after two weeks, and they hold a two point lead on “The Avengers” and four ahead of “Red Sox”.

The administrivia for this post is that the link to the standings sheet on LeagueSecretary.com has been added and the winter league links deleted, completing the summer transition. I’ll be archiving the online log (on BowlingTracker.com) for the winter league recently completed momentarily.

2012 Brunswick Mixed video

Alex did something different this year: He uploaded the “highlight” video to YouTube, and I’m going to try to embed it here…

Alex has a great sense of humor, and the opening gag based on Ralphie’s hats was too good to pass up. You’ll even see me crushing the pocket, for a change…I was wearing a gray sweatshirt that night, and you’ll see me turn to the camera at the end.

2012 Mass. open state tournament results

The Southeastern Mass. Bowling Association has posted unofficial final results of the state open tournament recently completed. As usual, I will list the state champions below (location is that of the entry and is not necessarily the hometown of the entrant):

Scratch Division

Team: Bedard’s (Swansea, MA) 3,327
Doubles: John Tremblay & Steve Ramey (Lowell, MA) 1,507
Singles: Darrin Borges (New Bedford, MA) 802
All-Events: Jim Pritts, Jr. (Peabody, MA) 2,193

Handicap Division

Team: Lavallee Machine II (Southbridge, MA) 3,878
Doubles: John Mason & Edward Carter (Springfield, MA) 1,651
Singles: Mike Kowalchek (Auburn, MA) 885
All-Events: Mike Kowalchek (Auburn, MA) 2,404

(Note: Scores given above are the high scores in each event and may not necessarily be the final prize winner.)

Congratulations to this year’s state champions! 😀

May 23 league night recap

My Week 2 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

Noting that a bowler I knew well was throwing a less-aggressive ball on my pair during open play before league started tonight, I decided to pull out my Fast tonight to see how that ball would do. As it turned out, I had forgotten how much I love that ball, and tonight gave me a small reminder of why. I suffered five splits, including an early 7-9 on a shot that I crushed the pocket on, but I made most of everything else.

Result: 188-178-185=551
Average (6 games): 172
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 524

Berta and Brian joined me and Matt tonight, and we rechristened the team “Froot Loops.” Berta got herself together after a bad first game, but our opponents bowled well enough to take the first two and total for six points.

May 21 league standings update (first of summer 2012)

As it happened, my team is still known by number (18), as another team named themselves “The Pinheads,” and I guess the unwritten rule is the lower number team gets first dibs on the name. Oh well, maybe we’ll come up with something else next week.

As for the standings themselves, I won’t name all of the teams that only won two points this week, but my team landed in the 16th spot (out of 20 teams, possibly including a vacant team). Two teams, numbered 19 and 14, won all eight points in Week 1, and those teams were listed in pinfall order.

“RPMM’s” will be my team’s opponents for Week 2.

Note: The standings sheet on BowlerExpress has been added to the “Author’s links” sidebar category as the summer links transition continues.

Brunswick Mixed 2011-12 champions

And, as usual, here’s the photo of our league champions:

The 2011-12 Brunswick Mixed champions, The 5 G’s (L to R): Dana Gomes Jr., Dwayne Gomes, Durell Gomes, Ed Godino III

This team started with Nick Gomes, as well, but he had to quit the league mid-season due to his new employment. Congrats guys! 😀

Also, my team’s photo has been added to the “scrapbook.” It shows me in a new item of bowling swag: a Pete Weber “I AM!” t-shirt inspired by his reaction after winning this year’s US Open; if you can’t see the design on the front, you can view it here, with the ability to mouseover the front of the shirt to view the back of the shirt. As I don’t want the “scrapbook” page to get too overloaded with photos, I figure I’ll post one more photo there before I start a second page.

Thank you to Randi Sullivan of “The Mustangs” for letting me post both photos.

2012 Brunswick Mixed banquet

As I probably figured, my team was shut out of the big team prizes, but we were tied for 4th overall in points, so our point money was better than it usually is. Personally, I took the prize for 2nd high handicap series in my division, but, on my team, it was Berta who really made out, as she not only won her division’s high average, but was also most improved for the women. In addition, she received pins as awards from both the Tri-City women’s local association (for a 525 series) and the state women’s association (for a 140-over-average series).

My league is always doing things a little different at the banquet, and the wrinkle this year was that the Coles knew of a start-up bakery in East Bridgewater and had bowling cupcakes made in a few different flavors. I’m hesitant to give a company unrelated to bowling a free plug on my blog, but anyone who wants to inquire about the new bakery can certainly give me a message on my contact form (or find me on Facebook) to ask about them. Also, Alex did another video, with Pat’s reaction to one of his shots getting some laughs.

The photos will again come later because my camera batteries ran out after I took a fairly bad one of my team, but I will have the one a member of “The Mustangs” took in the “scrapbook” eventually, as well as the photo of our champions in a future post.

May 16 league night recap (start of summer 2012 league)

I ended up getting a man by the name of Matt Greenstein as one of my teammates, and I took two vacant scores this week so Berta and Brian could start bowling with us next week. I went with Matt’s suggestion of “Pinheads” as the team name. The only notable thing that happened in the meeting was that the league voted to have negative handicaps for teams with averages over 800.

My Week 1 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

My night was marked by a brutal spare game, in which I missed 3 10 pins and couldn’t make any of my cluster leaves. The only reason the second and third games were within reason was that I found a better look at the pocket by balling down to my Hy-Road and circling the heads a bit.

Result: 124-190-168=482
Average (3 games): 160
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 484

Matt averaged 137 on the night, improving in each game. The team only won the third game, with the first game being possible if I had not had a horrible game.

Start of 2012 summer links transition

I set up new pages today for the summer league on BowlingTracker.com and (linked for the first time) BowlSK, the latter of which will have all of my series sheets linked. None these have any information currently, but I did the set-up to save some time tomorrow night (and the first night of any league will always be a bit hectic). These links will be in the usual “Author’s links” sidebar category.

Speaking of the summer league, I don’t have a team lined up yet, but getting on a team with Shawn Coles (the Brunswick Mixed secretary) and Brian and Ken Snow (of “The Incredibowls”) is an outside possibility right now. My winter teammates Berta and Brian will also be bowling, but will be out of town until the weekend (they’ll be back for the Brunswick Mixed League banquet on Saturday), so their first night of the summer will be next week.

2012 Mass. youth tournament results

The Massachusetts Youth Bowling Association concluded their championship tournament at AMF Auburn Lanes last weekend, and the state champions representing Westgate Lanes are below:

Teams, 341-400 Handicap: Jessica Blyth, Alexi Wallace, Jessie Hanning, Taylor Harris
All-Events, 60 & under Scratch: Jessica Blyth

Congratulations to Westgate Lanes’ state youth champions! 😀

Full results are linked on the association website.

Cross-training #211

The Chicago Sun-Times notes that Bears cornerback Charles Tillman will host a charity event on June 7 at Kings Lanes in Rosemont, IL to benefit his Charles Tillman Cornerstone Foundation, which assists critically and chronically ill children. Tillman was a finalist for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award last season for his charitable efforts.

2012 Brunswick Mixed roll-off

The roll-off for my league tonight was a rematch of last year’s, with “The Incredibowls” having won the first half and “The 5 G’s” the second half. There were two things different this year: Nick Gomes was no longer a member of the “G’s,” so the team had to take a 140 vacant score, and Ed Godino III was on vacation, and so got an absent 199 (absentee score is average minus 5 in the league).

The result turned out to be much different, as well, as Dana Gomes paced the “G’s” with a 204 first game on the way to a 1,028-895 win (team scores are with handicaps), giving his team an early 133 pin advantage. The second game was a lot closer, with Dwayne Gomes leading his team to a 1,018-1,004 second game win with a 214 game, but then the “G’s” ran and hid from their opponents, as Dwayne and Dana put up 232 games, with Durell Gomes adding a game in the 190s (as the lowest average bowler on the team) to take the third game by 250 pins, 1,125-875, making the final score 3,171-2,774.

Picture of the champions coming (hopefully) after the banquet a week from Saturday.

May 2012 Northeast Amateur Tournament notes

I was around for the end of the first squad and all of the second squad for the NAT today, but there were a couple of high scores by Westgate Lanes bowlers in the first squad. For starters, Hakim Emmanuel, on his birthday, had a 290 first game, but the squad belonged to Jason Sherwood, with games of 289, 254, and 269 for an 812 scratch and 851 handicap, making him the high qualifier. He told me it was his first 800, but the only thing I replied with, basically, was, “It’s too bad you can’t get your ring for it.” There was one other bowler I didn’t know (probably not a Westgate Lanes bowler) and I forgot his name who, averaging 141, ended his qualifying set with a 280; it was probably the game of his life.

2012 Hall of Fame dinner

Tonight, I attended the Brockton Bowling Association’s Hall of Fame Dinner, my first as a member of the board, inducting Tony Attardo and Maureen Morrison. Both spoke of the need to pass along this great game to our youth, teaching them not only the fundamentals of the game, but also proper conduct and etiquette. Tony’s speech was the one that really spoke to me however, telling about how he still enjoys the game even after 7 different back surgeries; after hearing of this, Tony will certainly serve as inspiration to me going forward.

The photo I got of all of the Hall of Famers in attendance this year is up on the association’s Facebook page.

Addition to scrapbook: Aside from the Hall of Famers, there was one guest I knew was coming that I wanted a photo with; someone I originally “met” online and persuaded to bowl at Westgate Lanes. I haven’t been keeping up the “scrapbook,” so the photo with my friend is the new addition to that page, which you may view here. This is also the first photo of me in the shirt that I now wear to association events as a member of the board.

May 4 outing with brother

My night with my brother didn’t start that well for me, and I knew I was in for it fairly early when I left a 5-10 split on what I thought was a shot that contacted the pocket (if I leave the 5-10 at all, it’s usually when I go wide left). In a rarity, he beat me 161-137, the 161 which we believed was his best game since he’s been bowling with me, and he had five marks in a row in that game, also a first.

Taking the loss as motivation, I buckled down, recovering a second game in the 150s after making the decision to shell up from my Hy-Road to my Reign of Fire and play deeper in. Continuing the trend toward improvement, I also made a breakthrough with my spare game mechanics: I noticed that I tend to let my swing drift out when shooting spares, particularly corner pins, so keeping my swing straight on second ball was a point of emphasis. On the night, I only missed one single pin, a 10 that I just barely missed left, and, in the third game, I felt comfortable enough to try to throw my spare ball at my 7; I had two 7s in the third game and did not miss either of them.

Indeed, I was on my spare game enough to have a clean game in the third game, a 215. My brother actually got the first double of the night in the middle of the game, but I matched that double, and kept marking until the 10th frame. In the 10th, after getting my first strike, I wanted to leave no doubt with my brother that the game was clean (I’ve posted before that he doesn’t consider a game clean unless you left no pin on the deck to end the 10th frame), so I threw two more. With my best game in weeks, I considered my ego salved from my first game loss.

Why didn’t I think to try to play inside with strong equipment sooner in my season? :/

Arsenal avatar added to sidebar

For some time, my avatar on the bowling forums has been an animated GIF cycling through images of the balls in whatever is my arsenal at the time, from strongest ball to weakest ball. I recently updated the avatar to start with my Nano (now my strongest ball), but got the idea to show it on my blog, too, and, knowing there was a widget available on it, I added the image (on PhotoBucket) to the sidebar.

Note: For the individual images, I just used generic images of the balls that can be found in a Google image search, and used GIMPShop after resizing to create the animation. I could get fancy and fade the individual images into each other, but I’m not that skilled with GIMPShop.

My 2011-12 season, by the numbers

As I usually do at the end of my winter bowling season, I dedicate a post to breaking down my league performance with the help of the BowlSK reports. First, the first-ball numbers (numbers before the pipe | character reflect last year’s performance):

Strike percentage: 46.4% | 36.4%
Pocket shots: 78.2% | 64.0%
Carry percentage: 58.6% (529/903) | 53.7% (392/730)
Double rate: 49.1% (250/509) | 37.2% (149/400)
Average first-ball count: 8.9 | 8.7
Average first-ball non-strike count: 7.9 | 7.9

As has been noted in many of the league night recaps, I had more of a struggle with my shotmaking this year, which is reflected in a noticeably lower overall strike percentage as well as the percentage of my pocket shots.  The thing that helped is that my carry rate was only slightly lower, but I couldn’t really string them, which is reflected in my double rate.   My spares continued to be fairly manageable, as my average non-strike count remained the same.

Now, breaking down my spare game:

Overall spare percentage: 51.4% (303/589) | 55.9% (384/687)
Single-pin spare percentage: 70.9% (183/258) | 68.7% (184/268)
Multi-pin spare percentage: 56.1% (110/196) | 60.9% (179/294)
Makeable (non-split) percentage: 64.5% (293/454) | 64.6% (363/562)
Split conversion percentage: 7.4% (10/135) | 16.8% (21/125)
Washout conversion percentage: 26.1% (6/23) | 16.7% (5/30)
Percentage on single 10 pin: 63.6% (68/107) | 53.3% (49/92)
Percentage on single 7 pin: 71.4% (20/28) | 56.3% (27/48)

Overall, I did show a bit of improvement in my spare shooting, but most of that was improvement in making my multi-pin spares (including splits).  My single-pin percentage went down slightly, and most of that was not picking up my corner pins; I wasn’t leaving as many 10s, but I left a lot more 7s (20) while only making 7 more of those.  What may help is work not only on picking up the corner pin spares, but trying to learn to adjust so I don’t leave as many of them (I think the increased 7 pin leaves were ones where I left shakers coming in light).

To test my overall split improvement, I ran both this year’s and last year’s spare percentage reports and looked for my 3-10, which is one of the easier splits.  I found I actually made it one fewer time, but left it two fewer times, so my percentage remained the same (50%), so I shouldn’t count on making splits at this rate, as the improvement was probably picking up one or two of my tougher ones (indeed, I picked up both the 2-4-8-10 and the 4-7-10 for the first time in my recollection this season).

May 2 league night recap (last night of season)

My Week 35 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

I threw my “new” Nano for the first time in anger tonight, but some of my shotmaking and my spare game didn’t match the caliber of the ball. That said, I did like the look it gave me in the first two games. For the third, I decided to shell down to my Reign of Fire (something I didn’t think would happen at one time), and that allowed me to keep my look.

Result: 165-167-185=517
Final average (105 games): 174
Average for last 9 games: 173

We needed to take at least three points from tonight’s opponents to move ahead of them into third place for the half, and we did just that, winning the first and third games handily. We almost had the second game won, as well, however, we couldn’t get marks at the end, while three of our opponents nearly struck out in the tenth, with two of them working on doubles and the third also working on a strike.

It should be said we had our high handicap series of the season on the last night, a 3,136. I believe, however, we’re going to fall short of a team prize, as “Bowling Stones,” by my estimation at the beginning of the night, was in line for the team high handicap series prize with a 3,141. We were also out of the running for the team high handicap game.