June 11 league night recap

My Week 4 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

I don’t think I ever really had the right lane tonight, and three splits in the third game, which has become something of a problem, cost me. On the bright side: Over 75 percent on my makeables tonight, including all six of my single pins.

Result: 168-194-142=504
Average (12 games): 162
Average for last 9 games: 168
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 498

We had Jim again after he was absent last week, and he shot 705 to help us win all eight again.

June 8 league standings update

After sweeping “Wyld Stallyns”, “It’s Jim’s Fault” now leads the league by two points over Teams 9 and 5 and by three over “Lucky Thirteens”. My team bowls against Team 9 (the Boermans, best known formerly as “Wild Samoans”) in the coming week.

June 4 league night recap

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

Felt I made more progress tonight, and it showed in my total, but my physical game fell apart third game and I never mustered much.

Result: 195-185-138=518
Average (9 games): 160
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 489

Team won three games comfortably, but Michael Gainey for our opponents had the highlight of the night on our pair, a rare conversion of the 2-8-10 in which he sent the 2 into the 10 and got something to come back for the 8.

June 3 league standings update

We actually bowled against a team named “N’Sync” last week (“Lucky Thirteens” are actually team number 14), and, after winning six points from them, “It’s Jim’s Fault” are in a tie for 4th with “Wyld Stallyns” (our opponents tomorrow night), Team 9, and Team 5. “Lucky Thirteens” lead the league after Week 2, a point ahead of “Ghetto Stars” and Team 1.

May 28 league night recap

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

Three mostly better games, but Lou thought my usual release problem was creeping into my game again. Five splits, but I didn’t miss much that was easy (only one missed single pin, a 2 that I hooked past).

Result: 155-171-167=493
Average (6 games): 154
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 470

Lou got his 600 tonight, and the team won two games and total after losing the first game.

New ball: IQ Tour Fusion

One of the things I noticed last night was that my Hy-Road was struggling to get off the break point even though I had the ball cleaned and re-polished a couple of months ago, and have been using the ball only moderately since then. My thought after that was to update the Hy-Road, and I told Ray today that my choice would be the IQ Tour Fusion.

After coming into the shop, I told Ray that my thought was another stacked leverage layout, and what he came up with was a layout of 4.5″ X 3.5″ X 1.25″, which was between two of the “standard” layouts and would be suitable for a variety of lane conditions (my thought with the Hy-Road). Getting three games to try the ball out, I needed a couple of games to sort my physical game out, but, after that, I got a better idea of what this ball would do. It does, indeed, come off of the spot better than the Hy-Road, and also carries better, as I left not a single flat 10 on my good pocket hits, and carried the 7 most of the time on my swishing hits. My last game was a clean 223, starting with a double and with a turkey from the 5th frame, standing 34 and going about 12 at the arrows on the house shot.

This ball will probably be the one I pull out on my next league night. 😀

May 21 league night recap (first of Summer 2014)

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

If my “point of emphasis” this summer is to make better second-game adjustments, this wasn’t a very good start. I also missed more than my share of spares, so I’m thinking the only place to go from here is up.

Result: 154-122-156=432
Average (3 games): 144
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 438

Fortunately, my bad night was made up for by Lou and Jim, and we ended up splitting 4-4 (this is an eight point league).

Administrivia for this post is the start of the summer links transition. I will again link my Excel log, but, where this is a shorter season, don’t expect much statistical detail in it.

2014 summer league ramp-up

My summer league starts today, and, this year, I’ll be replacing Rob Dickens on Eileen Ruhl’s team, which won the league last year, with Lou Larry and Jim Blyth as my other teammates. I’d never been teammates with my winter league’s president (Jim), so that will be the new experience this year. I probably won’t expect much in the way of performance, as I’m thinking I might want another ball on this house pattern, but they’ll change it up in the fall, so getting another ball now will be a waste of money unless I think I can use it in the future.

2013-14 Brunswick Mixed brackets post-mortem

I promised earlier that I’d make my brackets worksheet for the past season public at the end of the season, and I do that now by linking it here.

A point to remember is that one entry in a bracket usually goes to admin fees (even though Shawn in this league uses them to put himself in brackets), so, necessarily, a loss of 12.5% is to be expected. As you can see from the worksheet, I was actually on the point of nearly breaking even in mid-March, but then hit the skids, ending up with a loss of just under 27%. I can call it a bad season because this is over that “magic” 12.5%.

My bowling log is still visible (follow the link in the “Author’s links” section of the sidebar, but I’ll only have it linked there a couple more weeks), and you’ll note that I was about five pins under my average in the second game; you get nothing if you’re eliminated in the second game, so I feel I could have done better if I was better in the second game, and this will be one thing I want to improve on next season.

2013-14 winter season wrap-up

As I do after the winter season, I go back and take a look at the highs at Westgate Lanes during the season just ended. As usual, I list them for both the men and women, with youth bowlers being included if they otherwise qualify. High average is based on a minimum of 72 games in the league the average is from.

Men

Average: 231.8; Dan Esdale (Thursday Night Patriots)
Series: 855; Bob Hamilton (Westgate Mixed)
Game: 300; Adam Johndrow (Firefighters), Pat Carrara, Ryan Evans, Shawn Hagan (Coke Classic), Rob Dickens (His & Hers), Rai Doblmeier (Tuesday Scratch Sportsmen), Ed Alfieri, Jim Alfieri, Rob Dickens, Bob Hamilton, Mike Spratt, Harry Thibeault, Brian White (Westgate Mixed), Adam Johndrow (Thursday Handicap Doubles), Peter Sands, Mike Trent (Thursday Night Patriots), Dan Esdale*, Jewell Wilson (TNBA)

Women

Average: 217.0; Sandi Litchfield (Westgate Mixed)
Series: 795; Sandi Litchfield (Westgate Mixed)
Game: 300; Sandi Litchfield (Westgate Mixed)

* Note: Dan Esdale had two 300 games during the TNBA league’s season.

Good bowling, again, everyone, and have a good summer! 😀

Ferguson, Travers post 800 series in 2014 state tournament

The state tournament at Brunswick Zone Lowell wrapped up this weekend with a couple of 800 series by Westgate Lanes legends. Yesterday, Jim Ferguson put up games of 289, 279, and 235 for an 803 series, bowling with Sean Richard in the doubles event. Then, today, Steve Travers followed suit with games of 258, 299, and 257 for an 814 set in his singles event.

Congrats to both! 😀

2014 Brockton city tournament official results

Official results of this year’s city tournament have finally been posted, and are available here. I mentioned the winning scratch team members by name in my Day 1 post, but I’ll give the line-up for the winning handicap team, “Sammy K’s Barber Shop”, here: Sammy Kamel, Rick Fallon, Dan Robinson, and Steve Travers.

Congratulations to everyone who cashed this year! 😀

2014 Brunswick Mixed banquet

My league’s banquet for the 2013-14 season was held tonight, and I was expecting to be third high average in men’s “B”, but didn’t know what team prize we’d get. We did find out we ended up with third high scratch team game (which was lower on the totem pole because the top three teams in points in each half got better prizes, followed by scratch and handicap series). Along with team point money, I also got my now-usual prize for perfect attendance, which, as I’ve said before, means at least as much to me from a morale standpoint as the other prizes.

I tried to get a photo of Team 16, the champions, but it was too blurry to use, so I’ll have to settle for recognizing them here by name (in line-up order): Donna Nichols, Frank Venuto, Karen Goodwin, Sue Young, and Warren Young. Congrats guys! 😀

Live blog: 2014 Brunswick Mixed roll-off

As I did last year, this post will be updated as the night progresses, and if anything happens in the Westgate Mixed league on their second half position night, that will be noted, as well.

Game 1: “We Split 4 No 1” won the first game 1087-1056 (team totals will be with handicap). Juan Rosario led that team with a 195, while Warren Young had a clean 209 game for Team 16.

Game 2: Team 16 won the second game 1195-1026 and takes a 138 pin lead into the last game. Team 16 was again led by Warren Young with a 232 game, and Frank Venuto, one of the lower average bowlers, added a 171. Hollis Solorzano paced her team with a 174.

Game 3: Team 16 won the last game 1131-1100 and the match 3382-3213. Warren Young finished with a 196 for a 637 set. Hollis Solorzano was high game for her team with a 189.

My 2013-14 season, by the numbers

As I usually do at the end of my winter bowling season, I dedicate a post here 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: 37.2% | 32.2%
Pocket shots: 66.5% | 67.2%
Carry percentage: 54% (410/759) | 45.7% (333/728)
Double rate: 37.6% (152/404) | 32.7% (110/336)
Average first-ball count: 8.6 | 8.7
Average first-ball non-strike count: 7.8 | 8.0

I was hitting the pocket more often this year, but my carry was down precipitously. However, my first ball counts were up, meaning I was at least leaving more manageable spares, and we’ll see if that had any effect on my overall spare game below:

Overall spare percentage: 55.7% (383/687) | 63.2% (436/690)
Single-pin spare percentage: 66.1% (162/245) | 75.8% (235/310)
Multi-pin spare percentage: 62.6% (209/334) | 64.2% (179/279)
Makeable (non-split) percentage: 64.1% (371/579) | 70.3% (414/589)
Split conversion percentage: 11.1% (12/108) | 21.8% (22/101)
Washout conversion percentage: 25% (10/40) | 30.8% (8/26)
Percentage on single 10 pin: 62.1% (59/95) | 68% (83/122)
Percentage on single 7 pin: 63.6% (35/55) | 70% (49/70)

My rates were up across the board, but I also bowled fewer games than most years (because of two weeks off for the holidays), so I did some math and figured out with ratio and proportion that I was leaving proportionately more spares, but fewer multi-pin spares, so my lack of carry this season was definitely emphasized. I was leaving the 10 a lot more often proportionately (I would have left it 89 times at last year’s rate), but still made it about 6% of the time more often. This was something I definitely wanted to improve on this season, and did.

My average went up a pin (actually a small fraction, but enough to call it a whole pin over)…it’s no coincidence that my improvement on spares was a big part of that, so take this as proof that spares are important.

Apr. 27 NAT result note

The Northeast Amateur Tournament’s newsletter reported Reggie Carreiro as the winner of the Apr. 27 event at Westgate Lanes over Bert Santos. The tournament director informed me on Facebook that the score of the final match was 313-261 (with handicap). No information on other cashers was available, but the new website is still under construction, so I hope that this information will return in the future.

Also part of the backlog is that John Papa and Greg Watson had 300 games during the head-to-head finals portion of the tournament.

Video: Sean Richard’s 300 in state tournament

With Sean Richard’s permission, I have uploaded his video of the last strike of his 300 game Sunday in the state tournament in Lowell to YouTube and have embedded it below.

Sean told me his teammates for this were (in no particular order) Dave Chalifoux, Danny Khuu, Bill Briggs, and Tony Attardo. I’ll comment when I have their team name, but I was told they’re currently in third place (though they didn’t say whether that was handicap or scratch).

May 13 league standings update (final of 2013-14 winter season)

After splitting the points with them, “Snakes On A Lane” finished tied for 12th with “Anger Management” in the second half standings, and won 57.5 points overall this season. “We Split 4 No 1” won the second half, so there will be a roll-off with Team 16, the first half winners, tomorrow night for the league championship. I hope to again be able to do a live blog from the roll-off.

Aguiar moves into top 10 in two events in 2014 USBC Open

As currently noted on his results page, Alex Aguiar posted sets of 794 in team, 685 in doubles, and 692 in singles for a 2,171 all-events total at the USBC Open Championships at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, NV. Bowling again with Brian LeClair, who Aguiar finished second in Regular Doubles with last year, the pair posted a 1,395 score, currently good for 8th place, and Aguiar is also now 8th in Regular All-Events. His team event was a surprise “bonus coverage” addition for the BowlTV live stream (billed as new USBC Hall of Famer Doug Kent’s appearance) Friday night, and the archive of the stream is embedded below for anyone who may have missed it.

Aguiar’s team, Rosebowl Lanes out of Newark, NY, currently stands in the top 20 (17th) in Regular Team.