Joe Slowinski to run clinic in NH in December

USBC Gold-level certified coach Joe Slowinski will run a clinic on Dec. 28 and 29 at Striker’s East in Raymond, NH, which will cover his 3-Point Targeting system, tiered taping, DYDS, arsenal development, lane transition, and layouts, among other topics. The full two-day program will cost $125, and $85 for a single day if pre-paid before Dec. 1 ($150/$100 after that date). Pre-payment link can be found on Joe’s website, and you may indicate whether you’re going on his Facebook event.

Sept. 18 league night recap

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

I missed an opportunity tonight, as I might have had my 700 if I made my ball change sooner, as it got me back to the pocket in the third game. I still made enough of my spares to not let my second game get too out of hand (and no missed single pins all night…how ’bout that!). 😀

Result: 259-162-244=665
Average (9 games): 179
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 545

I can’t remember if Brian had a deuce game yet, but he had one tonight in the third game with a 202. Team won all four.

Sept. 18 league standings update

After winning a point from “Anger Management”, “Crazy Eights” stand in a tie for 13th place (out of 16 teams) with “We Split 4 No 1”, six points behind the leaders, “The Doables”, who are two points ahead of “WTF Over”, 2.5 ahead of “Anger Management”, and three ahead of “Sweet Rolls”. A team named “Sr Spares” (on the BowlerExpress sheet) are my team’s opponents tonight.

Fall 2013 Week 2 virtual league results

“X-Factors” failed to win a point from “Off Constantly”, and that team is now a point ahead of “Turkey Hunters” for the lead, with “All Balls On Deck” three behind. “X-Factors” sit in sixth place, seven points back. It should be noted that a member of “Off Constantly”, “svengali”, bowled his first 700 in the league he submits; I bring this up because “svengali” bowls out of Town Line in Malden, so we have a chance of meeting up down the line in real life.

July 2013 People’s Tournament results

(Note: The July results are late because there was no tournament in August.)

The People’s Tournament reported Kevin Ferreira (Trade Center Bowl {Falmouth, MA}, 165 avg.) as the winner of the event held on July 21 at Westgate Lanes, defeating Keith Tantillo (Westgate Lanes, 200 avg.) by a score of 215-209 (with handicap) in the final match. The other semifinalists were Westgate Lanes bowlers: Al Chorney (188 avg.) and Josh Skuby (170 avg.).

Note: Al Chorney bowls in my league (Brunswick Mixed).

Sept. 13 practice

Having time out of the apartment today, I used some of it to see how playable the new shot was with my Hy-Road on the fresh, and I found that it was playable when I sought to throw it straight up 10 or 11. All but my third game was over my two-week average, and I was tending to leave weak 10s early, but ringing 10s later on. My release wasn’t all that consistent, usually leaving a split when I let it get away.

Sept. 11 league night recap

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

It was another struggle tonight, particularly when my strong balls proved too “jumpy,” and when that happened, I balled down to my Hy-Road. My spare game was on full display third game, missing only one (a split, one of six on the night) with only one strike at the end.

Result: 125-147-174=446
Average (6 games): 158
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 481

Spares really do win games: The third game point, the game where I was picking up my spares, was the one we won.

2013-14 Fall/Winter links transition

I’ve done a gradual transition of the “Author’s links” sidebar section between seasons in the past, but I made precedent today by taking down all of the summer league links and putting up all of the fall/winter league links at the same time. Part of the reason is that the standings pages don’t change location (there will be nothing new on those pages until my first standings update, at the earliest), but also that I’m putting up my actual spreadsheet log as a Google Docs spreadsheet, as I was thinking about doing. The log will be automatically updated as I sync the file on my Google Drive, and has two pages, the first with all of the games and most of the calculated averages, and the second with the pair averages and game and series score percentages. The more detailed spreadsheet log replaces the BowlingTracker.com sheets I’ve linked in the past.

Sept. 4 league night recap (First night of Fall/Winter 2013-14)

The team took the “Crazy Eights” name; I suggested “Turkey Hunters” as an alternative, but no one really liked it.

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

First game continues to be a nemesis, and if I could ever really figure that game out, I could be deadly. A promising sign, though, is that I was 8 of 10 on single pins, making all of my 10 pins.

Result: 143-180-181=504
Average (3 games): 168
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 510

It’s tough to judge points on the first night, but I was hopeful of a split; it did look like team won third game, anyway.

As I’m going with just posting my Excel log and need to set the sheet up, there is no administrivia for the winter links transition yet.

2013-14 Coke Classic League first third shot

While I was at Westgate Lanes today, Tim Major was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the program sheet for the oil pattern that will be used for the first third of the Coke Classic league this season, which was designed by Kegel’s representative for the New England region. I scanned the sheet into a PDF and have made it available here (I did tell Junior at the Coke league’s meeting a couple of weeks ago that I was able to do this.).

Computer preparedness

Many of you have seen on Facebook recently that I acquired a new Windows 8 laptop, as well as a laser printer for use with it, and I said I’d divulge the reasons for the acquisitions here. That time has come. 🙂

I was at Westgate Lanes today getting my new gear set up for use there. I’ve said here that I’d be providing scoring services for the Junior Professionals Tournament in November, and the new equipment will be used for that, but there’s more. After brackets weren’t run in the Coke league the last night of their season, I made an offer to Eric Durden, the person who’s been running the brackets in that league, to fill in for him this season on nights that he can’t make it, and I bought my stuff to do just that.

I needed software to do brackets on as well as hardware, and the bracket manager I chose was Braxion. CDE had TBrac for this purpose, and the two applications were about the same price, but I was assured by the folks at Braxion that I could print out scoresheets after the brackets have been generated, so I chose that one. I’ll put up a link to their website in the sidebar, in the general “Bowling Links” category.

2013-14 Fall/Winter ramp-up

As for my real league, I’m returning to the Brunswick Mixed league with the same team. We might be getting the same team number we’ve had (8), so I’ve proposed the “Crazy Eights” name this year. We’ll see if it’s the name we go with next week. Berta, Brian, and I bowled the no-tap, and I had a 647, which might be good for something with my handicap.

My virtual league team has returning teammates “Charlie98” and “jbungard”, with “BOSStull” and “Domokun” (the latter who is also a friend on Facebook) as first-time teammates of mine. Hoping to buck my summer league trend, the team went with “X-Factors” as our name. With eight five-man teams and a 16 week season, my real and virtual leagues will start in lockstep.

Westgate Lanes to host Junior Professionals Tournament Nov. 3

Westgate Lanes will be hosting the first Junior Professionals Tournament, conceptualized by Westgate Lanes youth bowler Stephen Major and for which yours truly helped refine the format, on November 3 at 10 AM. The tournament is for bowlers of USBC youth-eligible age at least 11, and the format is similar to a PBA tournament, with qualifying and match play rounds leading up a stepladder final round. There will be two divisions, handicap and scratch, handicapped at 80% of 200 with bowlers 200 average and over bowling in the scratch division. If you have a child who may be interested in participating, you may click here for the entry document with the particulars. Entries will close on Oct. 20.

I’ve been looking to become more involved with the youth bowlers, and this tournament provides a unique opportunity for me to do so, with me liking the format due to the natural tendency of youth to want to emulate their heroes. I will be providing scoring services as well as other computer-related support (I drew up the entry document above in Microsoft Word), and I hope to see everyone there. This is not a sanctioned tournament, so you’d think I wouldn’t get involved as a member of the Brockton Bowling Association board, but I’m throwing my support behind this in the hope that future tournaments of this type will be sanctioned.

Ed Roberts, Team USA take team silver at senior worlds

The USBC reported that Ed Roberts and Team USA won the silver medal in men’s team of four at the WTBA World Senior Championships yesterday in Las Vegas. The Americans qualified second and defeated Puerto Rico in the semifinal match 860-844 before losing the gold medal to Sweden 903-816. Sweden defeated Mexico 765-696 in the other semifinal match.

Ed Roberts also qualified for the Masters by placing 15th in men’s all-events, but failed to make the cut in last night’s first round.

Aug. 14 league night recap (including final standings update)

My Week 13 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

I seem to have trouble in the first game, and tonight was no exception with my 121, but sometimes the nights you save something in are better than the nights you actually do well all night, and I had nice games in the other two to save an over-average night. My last game was a “Frank Vogel” clean game (meaning I left nothing on the deck in any frame, even filling the 10th).

Result: 121-203-238=562
Final average (39 games): 180
Average for last 9 games: 186

My team paid for my bad first game, as we needed 6 points out of the match to guarantee getting out of last place, and my team split 4-4. The 4-4 split would have been enough if the match ahead of us was a sweep by one of the teams, but that didn’t happen, either. “Rose and Thorns” won their match and claimed the league championship, so congrats to Lou Larry, Eileen Ruhl, Rob Dickens, and Jim Blyth (the first three of whom have been teammates of mine at some point). 😀

I checked my overall stats, and my rate of making single pin spares was somewhere around 70% this summer, which is an improvement over last winter. I’m feeling better about where my game is overall, so I’m hopeful for the coming fall/winter season.

Ed Roberts earns doubles bronze at World Senior Championships

The USBC reported that Ed Roberts and Del Ballard Jr. won a bronze medal for Team USA yesterday at the WTBA World Senior Championships in Las Vegas. Roberts and Ballard tied for fourth in qualifying with Finland’s Timo Mäkelä and Teemu Raatikainen with a 2,512 score for six games and then won a one-ball roll-off to break the tie 20-19. In the semifinals, the pair lost to the USA’s Hugh Miller and Ron Mohr 379-349. Miller and Mohr then won the gold medal over Edgar Gomez and David Romero of Colombia, 450-387. Jack Brace and Ray Vervynck of Canada were the other bronze medalists.

Aug. 11 league standings update

After winning only two points from “New Beginnings”, “X Factors” will bowl against “Wild Samoans”, who are tied with Team 11 and “Fancy Sauce” three points ahead of us, Wednesday night in the position round. “Rose and Thorns” are two points clear in first, and will bowl against “4 Horsemen”, who are tied with “Paul’s Carpet”, and “IWorkout” is two points further back; the latter team can tie for first with a sweep and either the top match is split 4-4 or “4 Horsemen” win six points.

Aug. 9 outing with brother

There’s a wedding in my family this weekend, so my brother is in Brockton all weekend, finding time to bowl yesterday. As usual, I took the opportunity to work on some things, and this one was using my stronger equipment. I had mixed results, with my brother actually winning the second game (it’s happened before) with something like a 140 when I was only in the 120s with a lot of splits and other missed spares. I did recover in the third game, throwing my only double of the session in it with my Marvel Pearl.

Dave Townson goes 300/801 in Summer His & Hers

Congrats to Dave Townson (I’ve noted here in the past that he was my first league secretary) on games of 248, 300, and 253 for an 801 set last night in the summer edition of the His & Hers league. 😀

I need to note that, for reasons I will not publish here, the summer His & Hers league decided not to sanction this year, so neither Dave nor Steve Cohen, whose honor score I reported last week, will receive USBC awards.

Aug. 7 league night recap

My Week 12 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)

This night was so mediocre for me I didn’t even bother leaving a comment on BowlSK about it. I was never really sure I had a good look at the pocket all night, with seven splits (not counting the one filling the last frame) wrecking it.

Result: 147-176-160=483
Average (36 games): 180
Average for last 9 games: 177
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 579

All three games were fairly close, but we were tied after two games and we just couldn’t close, so we only ended up getting the second game.