A blog (mostly) about tenpin bowling in the Bay State's "City of Champions"
Author: Rich
I started "The Tenth Board" to chronicle my experiences during the road back to league bowling after my heel fractures in 1999 (it took me 7 years before I started thinking seriously about it). I now use the blog as a combination of a personal bowling journal and a news site mostly about Westgate Lanes (Brockton, MA) and its bowlers.
My week was looking ordinary after two games last week, but when I thought to try to open the lane up a bit, it came together and I got an over-average night out of it. I’d still like to be able to put three games together for the stretch run of the league season.
Result: 169-162-225=556 Average (81 games): 179 Average for last 9 games: 182 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 584
The team did win three of four, and are now in 8th, 14 points behind We Got This. The leaders are three points ahead of BBOB in 2nd, five ahead of Sweet Rolls in 3rd, and seven ahead of Tucking Fen Pin in 4th. Canton, the team in 5th place currently, will be the opponents tonight.
Bobby did sweep the weekly high score categories in his division last week despite “only” shooting a 657.
Really, there were just three game scores of note coming out of this reporting period, a 279 by Aaron Major and a 277 by Kenny Meyer in the Patriots league, and a 288 by Rene Thompson in the Rhythm & Bowling league (links are to high score lists; Rhythm & Bowling league bowled on Mar. 20 & is reporting a week late).
Good, but disappointing at the same time. I started out with maybe my second-best game of the season on what had been my “kryptonite” pair, but then the “kryptonite” came back and the best I could take from the night was only improve my average on the pair.
Result: 230-150-139=519 Average (78 games): 179 Average for last 9 games: 182 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 600
The team used the strength of a 767 series from Bobby, which had a 279 game in it, to win three of the four points and move into a tie for 8th with Walter & Joseph Strong, 13 points behind the leading We Got This, who are now a point ahead of BBOB and three ahead of Sweet Rolls and Tucking Fen Pin in a tie for 3rd. We have an immediate rematch against last week’s opponents, 4 On 9 Man, tonight (but on a different pair, of course).
Bobby, fairly obviously, had the high scratch game & series in the league overall last week (and in the house, too; more on that in a moment), but the game was tied with both Shawn Coles and Tim Major, who both, of course, also had 279 games.
Patriots league note: The only bowler who had even a game as high as Bobby Geddes’s last week at Westgate Lanes was Brian Gaskill, with a 279 in the Patriots league (see high score list).
If 57 & 58 was my “kryptonite” pair, it wasn’t showing it, as I had my highest set on that pair this season last week. I mostly rode my great 225 first game to it, but a few single pins that carried would have made the third game pretty good, as well.
Result: 225-170-168=563 Average (75 games): 179 Average for last 9 games: 182 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 579
Team only won the second game, and, with the league contracting to twelve teams, I might not know my lane assignment or opponent until I get to the bowling center today (and it is a position night). Sweet Rolls are still the leaders, of course.
Back to pretty much my form, but if I could have made more of those multi-pin corner spares, I might have been happier that night.
Result: 185-184-190=559 Average (72 games): 179 Average for last 9 games: 179 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 602
The team only won the second game and are now in a tie for 9th with Strike Machine, 11 points behind Sweet Rolls; their lead is one point over Canton in 2nd, two over We Got This in 3rd, and three over BBOB in 4th. We bowl against the leaders tonight.
Last week was one in which the Patriots league bowlers did all of the major work, as follows: Aaron Major 279/782, Alex Major 761, Brian Egan 279, Francis Enamorado 279
There was nothing too special about last week, as I could string any more than two strikes together, and it was my spare game that was barely keeping me in it. I had to shoot at some splits, however, although it did convert the 5-10 “Woolworth” that is tougher for a right-hander than the mirror 5-7 would be.
Result: 170-178-170=518 Average (69 games): 178 Average for last 9 games: 174 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 549
Move To Strike won only the first game and stand in a tie for 8th place with Strike Machine and 4 On 9 Man (tonight’s opponents), 11 points behind the leading Sweet Rolls. The leaders are two points ahead of BBOB in 2nd, three ahead of Canton in 3rd, and four ahead of We Got This in 4th.
Bobby had not only the high scratch game in his division (258), but in the league overall last week.
I looked really good through two games, but then the proverbial house of cards fell down and I was left with a night that was only over average after having only one open frame through the first two games. It was my first “yuck!” ending to a night in a long time, as well, with the three splits out of the last four frames to close it.
Result: 205-197-137=539 Average (66 games): 179 Average for last 9 games: 175 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 599
The team only won the first game and now stand in a tie for 8th place with 4 On 9 Man, eight points behind the leaders, Sweet Rolls. Their lead is two points to a tie for 2nd between Canton and BBOB, and three to a tie between We Got This and Lundin Fog for 4th. Something Fishy, currently in 7th, will be tonight’s opponents.
Last week, Shawn Coles (the secretary) posted a 279 game in the league. Nice game! 🎳🤩
Westgate’s leagues last week saw only three scores of note, a 783 set turned in by Aaron Major and a 299 game from Stephen Dale Jr. in the Patriots league, plus one other in my own league that I’ll get to in a bit.
I mostly have felt either unmotivated or too distracted to write a personal bowling update in a few weeks, so all I really have to do is to get my best bowling in a couple of years on the website record:
After a few weeks this season of flirting with it, I finally got my first 600 series since the end of the 2018-19 season just after what would have been my father’s 80th birthday. It wasn’t a clean series, by any means, but I strung enough strikes in the third game to get me over the top for a 617. The set brought me briefly back to a 180 average, but the nights that followed only saw me sitting in the lower 500s and so have brought my average down a bit.
Average (63 games): 179 Average for last 9 games: 173 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 598
The team is off to a better start to the second half, going .500 (8-8) in points and sitting in 7th, six points behind Sweet Rolls, who have a two-point lead on BBOB in 2nd, and three points over three teams in 3rd. We bowl against one of the teams tied for 3rd, Lundin Fog, tonight.
I did have the high scratch game (215) in my division last week, per the standing sheet.
I should be considered more or less back from “bereavement leave” with this post. It was kind of a slow week overall, but here are the notable scores from the past week, which will include the most recently posted Boston Rhythm & Bowling league scores, which are a week lagged:
I don’t ever remember “Ka$h” (Sean Richard, for the uninitiated here) going more than a full calendar year without a perfecto in his home house, but as seen above, he tacked one on the end of an 812 set a couple of weeks ago to highlight a big week in the Patriots league that also saw Stephen Dale Jr. shoot an 802 series and Kyle Egan (who was home from the Wichita St. varsity team) also post a 300 game.
One of the items I haven’t posted about yet is a team series in the Patriots league bowled by Rick O’Shea, the members of which are Stephen Major, Brian Gaskill, and Stephen Dale Jr., of 2,254 on Dec. 30, evidenced by the award list below:
With my father’s end-of-life events distracting me the last few weeks, I decided to do an update tonight league-by-league, with all scores (except for the ones that usually get their own posts) that usually get written up since my last post done so:
Thursday Night Patriots: (Dec. 16) Corey Marvel 279, (Dec. 23) Ethan Rosenberg 279/766, Brian Gaskill 279/753, Aaron Major 289, (Dec. 30) Brian Gaskill 762, Stephen Dale Jr. 753, Brendan Litchfield 278, Stephen Major 276, (Jan. 6) Mark Zimmerman 279/764, Kevin Thibeault 279, (Jan. 13) Boston Rhythm & Bowling: (Dec. 12) Johnie Funches 277/777, Cindy Cabral 268/701, (Dec. 19) Lewis Bennett 279 Pepsi-Cola Classic: (Dec. 27) Bill Briggs 276/744, Willie Crocker 739, (Jan. 3) Rich Fulton 266, (Jan. 17) Mike Major 266
I really like how I’ve been bowling the last three weeks, and last week should have been an easy 600 series except that I butchered my spare game in Game 2, with four single-pin misses (although you could hardly blame me in the 10th frame, since I’d just found out I won the 50/50 raffle that night! 🥳). Always taking positives out of everything, I’ll take the third game out of that night, as it was completely clean after that bad of a spare game in the previous game.
Result: 203-148-224=575 Average (39 games): 180 Average for last 9 games: 192 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 560
In the standings, Sharon Turkeys are still the leaders by three over Sweet Rolls, five over Spare Us, and 5.5 over We Got This. BBOB are tonight’s opponents.
In the first example, I was really only a missed 6 pin away from 600, and that was my only missed single pin spare of the night. Last week was more of a struggle until the end, when I made an adjustment that found me reeling off the back seven for a 234, my second game over 230 this season. And even with the early struggles, the 234 made it a nice little 569 for the night.
Here are what my metrics look like going into tonight:
Average (36 games): 179 Average for last 9 games: 187 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 553
Move To Strike is still last for all intents and purposes, with Sharon Turkeys leading by 2.5 points over Sweet Rolls and We Got This, and by 3.5 points over Spare Us. Walter & Joseph Strong will be tonight’s opponents.
Last Thursday saw some great bowling in the Patriots league, as Team 9, for whom bowling that night were Jon Hester (sub), Brian Egan, and Kevin Thibeault, recorded games of 791, 728, and 771 for a 2,290 series, with Hester setting the pace for the team with a perfect opening game and a 795 set, Egan finishing with 745 and Thibeault 750 (see recap, Lane 46).
There were also a couple of great individual series, as AJ Voisine posted 279-264-277 for an 820 series (recap, Lane 40), and Aaron Major had 279-246-278 for an 803 (Lane 44 on recap linked in previous paragraph).
Recapping high scores from Westgate’s leagues for the week just ended, but it will also include the previous week, which was shortened by the Thanksgiving holiday with no Thursday leagues bowling that week:
Last week, Aaron Major (Who else these days?) became the first bowler at Westgate this season with multiple honors, with his second perfect game (see week’s high scores). Atta boy, Aaron! 🎳😎
This was the better of the two efforts, and could have easily been a 600 if not for three splits in the second game. There were two missed single pins, but only one that I blamed on myself (the other was a barely missed one in a game that was a lost cause anyway because of the splits).
This one also included a clean game (the second one), and another positive I could take out of this one was that there were no missed single-pin spares. The downer? I couldn’t make the 3-6-10 in the last game.
And here are where my stats stand at this point:
Average (24 games): 180 Average for last 9 games: 181 Tonight’s AVG+1 score: 561
Move To Strike is currently tied with Tucking Fen Pin for 11th place, 9.5 points behind We Got This, who are leading 4 On 9 Man by 2.5 points and Sharon Turkeys and Lundin Fog by 3 points.
In the last two weeks, Ricky Chan and Paul Dang recorded 277 and 278 games, respectively. Nice bowling. 🎳🙂
And this was the score I left out of the previous post. Mike Major shot an ace game last week in the Patriots league, per the weekly high scores. Mike told me he thought it had been about five years between 300s at Westgate, at least.
This is what should have been the third weekly installment of the weekly league round-up, but I’m including scores from two weeks ago because the Tuesday and Wednesday leagues were postponed last week due to a storm-related power outage at Westgate:
If you sift through the results of the 2021 Mass. senior tournament on the BPUSBC Facebook page above, you may note that it’s self-serving for once, as I bowled in the senior tournament for the first time and finished 3rd in Open Division E (ages 55-59), which was the last cash spot in the division and the only division in the tournament to pay a third spot. It represents my best result ever in a certified tournament, as I only ever remember cashing in one other certified tournament, an ABT event that I don’t really remember the details of as I didn’t make the cut to the semifinals, and, of course, the LBT that I won wasn’t a certified tournament.
I’ll go through my day by posting the BowlSK sheets from each squad and remarking on the squad, starting with the Sunday noon squad:
It was the clean first game that really set up my whole day, as it put me in a good frame of mind that I never lost, even with the let-up in the other two games of this set. I was crossing with two Hall of Famers, Bill Briggs, elected last year by my association, and Southeastern Mass. Hall of Famer John Camara. Both had noted at various points how well I was throwing the ball and wished me well in the second squad.
Admittedly, I got some breaks, but, after the five-bagger that I started this squad with, I smelled blood in the water and made sure my focus was on my bowling, and there was no real let-up, with all three games over the average I entered at. I was particularly proud that I only missed one 10 pin the entire day.
I shall look upon this as one of my favorite tournament experiences now, not just because of how well I bowled, but because of the company I bowled with. As for the latter, I’d like to thank, in particular, Dave Lisowski, who was on my pair for both squads and was encouraging me throughout. 🎳👍
The Tenth Board 
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