While NEBA itself hasn’t announced the lane condition for next weekend’s event at Westgate Lanes, the bowling center announced in a Facebook event that it will be the 2007 Weber Cup Day 3 pattern, with a link to the top graph on the pattern name. If the pattern is familiar to Westgate bowlers, it’s because that was the pattern for the recently-concluded second third of the Coke league season.

Also, NEBA has recently begun streaming their championship matches live on Periscope, so it’ll pay to keep following both NEBA’s Facebook page and Twitter feed for the link to the stream; it’ll be some time after 6 PM that Sunday night.

With 14 entries in the no-tap tournament today, Jeff Carter placed first with an 820 score, Ed Veltri second with an 800, and Chuck Gerlach third with 765.

The Brockton USBC BA will conduct its inaugural “BBA Madness” tournament on Apr. 10 at Westgate Lanes. The tournament poster is linked here, but the qualifying format may take some explaining, as it’s certainly different: Instead of pinfall, qualifying will be based on head-to-head wins in each game against the field, i.e. if there are 100 entries and you have the highest score in a game, that will be 99 wins. Bracketed single-elimination finals follow qualifying, and the association is advertising a $500 first prize with 64 entries.

UPDATE: I’ve scanned the full tournament rules and placed them in this PDF file.

The Brockton Bowling Association has posted the final official results and prize list on their website (PDF file), and I’ll recognize the champions below (with the individuals in parentheses for the team champions):

Handicap

Team: PUPU + 1 (Matt Richard, Chuck Paige II, AJ Voisine, Kevin Thibeault)
Doubles: Tina Gannon & Bill Briggs
Singles: Ralph Dahlgren
All-Events: Bill Briggs

Scratch

Team: Chris’ Crew (Chris Jolicoeur, Chris Carter, Mike Carter, James Burt)
Doubles: Jim Ferguson & Danny Khuu
Singles: Mark Zimmerman
All-Events: Jim Ferguson

The association would like to thank everyone who participated, and they hope to see you again next year. Congratulations to the cashers and champions. 🙂

The Senior E. Mass. Bowling Association reported on their website that Mike Klosin was the winner of the February event held yesterday at Westgate Lanes, saving his best game for last in the match play round with a 284 for a total of 1,940. Jim Pritts was second with 1,844, and Don Fournier (1,841) and Greg Griebel (1,675) rounded out the top four. There were 26 entries.

The USBC today released the lane conditions for this year’s Open Championships, being held starting next weekend at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno. As the usual service to readers, I link the pattern charts below:

Team event (38′ length, 26.7 mL total oil)
Doubles & singles events (39′ length, 27.6 mL total oil)

The reader will note that, unlike past years, the patterns are asymmetrical, being flatter on the left side than the right (Ratio for team pattern is 1.67:1 on the left, 1.7:1 on the right; minors pattern ratios are 1.73:1 on the left, 1.86:1 on the right). I believe this is being done to eliminate any advantage the lefties have.

As the USBC has also announced, starting next year, the lane conditions for the Open will not be published publicly until after the tournament’s run, so this is the last year, at least for the foreseeable future, I’ll be able to make this kind of post.

Stretching the local scope of this blog just a bit to recognize a bowler from the Brockton Bowling Association…

The New England Bowlers Association reported on their Facebook page that Gary Erickson, a bowler out of North Bowl Lanes, won his first NEBA title Saturday in the BowlingSeriously.com Senior Open at East Providence Lanes. Gary was the high qualifier at +254 (five games) and dominated match play, starting with back-to-back 280 games and defeating Angelo Buttiri in the semifinals with a 247 for an 807 through three games of match play. Gary then wrapped the title up by defeating Russ Michaud 268-237.

Congrats Gary! 🙂

In today’s no-tap tournament, Ralph Marple won with an 816 score, Sensae-Michael Reed second with an 808, and Kevin Thibeault third with a 797. There were 15 entries.

I might not have mentioned it here if not for the fact that it was one of the NEBA majors, but, as NEBA reported (PDF file), Danny Khuu made the semifinals of last Sunday’s Cambridge Credit Invitational at Hall of Fame Silver Lanes in E. Hartford, CT before losing to eventual champion Joe Novara. Nice showing, Khuulade! 🙂

Most of my readers were “spoiled” when this was bowled, but I decided to follow the PBA’s lead and not post about this until they did.

The PBA reported that Jon Van Hees of Charlestown, RI, after building a 49-pin lead in the championship match against Jason Sterner of Covington, GA, hung on to win the Scorpion Championship 202-176 at the PBA World Series of Bowling at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, NV for his first PBA Tour title in his first TV appearance after 106 career tournaments. Van Hees won the semifinal match against Lonnie Waliczek of Wichita, KS in similar fashion after building a 24-pin lead through seven frames en route to a 209-191 final score. Speaking of his road to his first title, Van Hees said, “I’ve always been kind of a late bloomer, but if I put the time and effort into it, I can usually get to where I want to go.”

Jon first caught my attention when I noted that he was subbing in the Coke league at the time he cashed in the 2008 US Open, and have since seen him at Westgate many times, particularly when NEBA has made stops. As my final word, congrats Jon, you’ve done New England bowling proud. 🙂

With only eight entries, Tim Major won today’s no-tap tournament with an 821 score, while Mike Peirce was runner-up with 798. Entries were likely held down by the UBA matches in Groton, CT.

The current Northeast Amateur Tournament newsletter reports that Sean Richard was the winner of the Dec. 27 singles event at Walnut Hill Bowl in Woonsocket, RI, defeating Bert Santos, 411-331 (with handicap), in the two-game final match.

WTG again, Ka$h! 🙂

In today’s no-tap tournament, Brian Egan finished first with 839, Keith Kaestner second with 799, and Sean Richard third with 778. There were 15 entries, including notably my cousin Dave Randall, and two of my other cousins, Karen and Mark Haas, who were up from Texas for the holiday.