This is a backlogged report, as the computers in the Westgate Lanes office are being worked on and league standings after the first week of the Wednesday leagues aren’t available…
John Hayes, the secretary of the BBIS league, did inform me that Zach Leverant did have an 11 in a row 298 game on Sept. 7 in the league, however. Congrats Zach! 😀
“Fantastic 4” ended up winning five of the possible seven points from “Split Happens” in the first week of the virtual league. As no team took all seven from another team, the five points ended up being the leading total after one week, with the real teams in the tie being “Nice Rack, Good Wood” (who are ahead of my team in scratch pinfall) and “Schnitzengiggles.” One team was unfortunate enough to lose five points to the vacant team (which Perfect Secretary seems to want to use a team of four vacant 201 scores rather than recognize a team is bowling unopposed), so the vacant team is currently involved in the tie at the top, as well.
Two weeks into the Patriots league, and two honor scores posted; last night, it was Jason Oh with an 11 in a row 299 game. Congrats Jason! 😀
My Week 2 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
Bottom line: I make my spares, it’s a good night. Getting the first five and only ending with a 199 in the second game was inexcusable, but the first game could have easily been at least in the 190s, as well. Two bad shots in the third game also ended up costing my team the point for total.
Result: 160-199-157=516
Average (6 games): 170
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 517
I mentioned that we lost total, but we did take the first two games and had a comfortable lead after those that we frittered away.
To my surprise, “Spare Parts” actually won all four points on the first night, with “Warren’s Girls” and “The 5 G’s” also doing so. My team is listed first in the standings by pinfall. “Deadwood” will be my team’s opponents tonight. Individually, Carl had the second high handicap game for the men last week.
As the administrivia, the standings on BowlerExpress have been added to the “Author’s links” list in the sidebar.
I meant to post yesterday, but the new virtual league season officially got underway with yesterday’s bowling, and my team assignment finds me on a team with “Charlie98,” “Rocket Jr.,” and “wklstoy.” “Charlie98” returns as a teammate of mine (albeit as a replacement on my team in my first virtual league as its secretary), while “Rocket Jr.” is one of the best youth bowlers in the state of Ohio right now. The team was named “Fantastic 4″…hope the name fits. 🙂
As an aside, the league has a vacant team for the first time since I took over the secretary duties, and, because we could do it in Perfect Secretary, our vacant/team unopposed rule is that a team has to bowl at least their team average to win points against the vacant/bye. I hope this makes things more interesting than if we just had teams bowl within 40 of their average against the vacant.
The honor score parade at Westgate Lanes got off to an early start last night when Sean Richard posted a first-game 300 in the Patriots league, which is the first of the new season. It is also believed, but not confirmed yet, to be the first 300 game of the season in the Brockton Bowling Association. Congrats Sean! 😀
I used my birthday and summer league cash to purchase some new Storm gear: their “Triumph” jersey, which I ordered online from their web store. Alex Frisbie was kind enough to get a picture of me in it tonight (I hoped to have the jersey delivered in time for the first night of fall league, and it was):
I will say the jersey is very comfortable, and kept me cool enough on a warm and humid night. I may buy another one, but a different design, in the future. 😀
My team returned intact, but we made a name change to “Spare Parts” before we bowled tonight.
My Week 1 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
I have a goal of just trying to reduce my physical game mistakes this year, but I didn’t get off to a great start in that regard, as my release was inconsistent all night. I may have left my best game on the practice lane yesterday.
Result: 184-179-143=506
Average (3 games): 168
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 508
In the time I’ve been bowling with him, Carl has had a few turkeys, but has never been able to add to that…until tonight. He got his elusive “hambone” with the second ball in the 10th frame first game, then repeated the feat in the same place in the third game, getting a 201 in that game. I think we had an outside chance at the second game, but I won’t know until the first week’s standings are posted.
I felt I needed a practice session, if anything to make sure there were no surprises with the shot for tomorrow night. Without giving too much away, I had seven in a row in the second game, so what I was doing was working, for the most part. My spare game was off, but I did convert the 6-7 in the first game.
Brunswick Mixed no-tap note: Shawn emailed the results of last week’s no-tap tournament today, and I came in second, just two pins behind Juan Rosario, a newcomer to the league. Congrats Juan, and we’ll get acquainted soon.
Fall links transition: To save time both at the bowling alley and when I get home tomorrow, I set up the new league on BowlingTracker.com and BowlSK, and the links to the stat sheet and BowlSK league index are up in the sidebar, under “Author’s links,” as usual.
The People’s Tournament reported Sean Wolf (AMF Lang’s Lanes [RI], 164 avg.) as the winner of the event held on Aug. 12 at Westgate Lanes. Wolf defeated Gary Maharne (AMF Silver Lanes [CT], 176 avg.) by a score (with handicaps) of 237-208 in the title match. Other cashers included “Hawk” Earle (Westgate Lanes, 193 avg.) and Charles Donovan (North Bowl, 190 avg.)
The People’s Tournament is planning a big tournament for December at Westgate Lanes. How big? Visit their homepage to find out. 😉
The LBT (League Bowlers Tournament) I won took place on the weekend of Oct. 21 and 22, 1989. I had cashed in one previous LBT tournament, so this would be my second appearance in an LBT stepladder finals. To get there, I had to qualify first, however, and I took my shot in the late squad (10 PM) on Saturday; late squads back then generally agreed with my body clock because I was working evenings and would be at my peak performance late. I was entering with a 147 average, so was getting the maximum 45 pins per game handicap.
I started qualifying with a 170 scratch game during which I had a turkey in the 7th, 8th, and 9th frames, and just kept improving, with a 194 second game, and capping it off with a one-open 220 game, which would stand as my best tournament game until my comeback. The 584 scratch series translated to a 719 handicap set, and I would learn when the results were posted that I knocked Steve Travers (one of my best bowling friends to this day) out of one of the qualifying spots and I would return the next day for the semifinals. I told a friend on Facebook many years later that I don’t know how I managed to get sleep for that Sunday, but that it would be fortunate that I did.
My spot in the finals was set up by a 211 game (that number would be important later on, as well) in which I had a five-bagger from the 4th frame. I had to hang on with games of 161 and 148 following for a 520/655 series that would put me in the third spot in the stepladder, meaning I would face the winner of the match between “Hawk” Earle and Bob Hamilton, won by “Hawk” with a 218 scratch game.
I decided I would go first against “Hawk” because I liked being in a position of knowing what I needed to win, and starting first meant finishing last. The match turned out to be nothing too special, as I had a 162 scratch game, but “Hawk” only threw a 188 scratch game himself, which was not enough to overcome the difference in handicap. Back then, “Hawk” was one of the better bowlers in the house (and is still pretty good today), so knowing I survived against him provided a shot of confidence.
My second match would be against Jim Yost, who had the same average as “Hawk” did (or at least as much handicap). Jim left four straight single pins to start the match, when I would really get going with a five-bagger from the third frame. Jim doubled in the 5th and 6th, but the roll I started on prompted the scorer to provide “commentary” by first switching our handicaps on the scorer, then making Jim’s handicap “+145”. I had not a single spare in the match, but I did shoot 190 scratch and 235 with handicap to Jim’s 179/187 to advance to the title match.
The title match would be against Joyce Bernard, and I’ll post the scoresheet below (click to view full-size):
Coming up in the 10th frame, I only needed the first strike, a five in count on the second ball, and make the spare. However, in an error probably caused by me wanting to be aggressive, I thought I needed the double to win, and still got it, punching out on the fill to put the icing on the cake. The top part of the item attached to the telescorer sheet was how Dick Roche wrote up the event for the Thursday bowling column in the Enterprise.
A couple of other items worthy of note:
My 5th high school reunion was just a month later; you can imagine my joy in telling my friends of my accomplishment. My mother was proud, as well. 😀
It is with some sadness that I must report that the BowlSpace website went offline sometime in the recent past, so the link to my profile on that site no longer works, forcing me to remove it. In the early days of this blog, I had BowlSpace “exclusives,” and those have now been lost. A couple of them only related to stuff that happened in my first league back, but I did tell the story of my LBT win there, so I’ll be forced to re-tell it here (but I do have added content in mind).
The main item during the Brunswick Mixed meeting was the increase in lineage by the house, so the league voted to go up $1/week in dues. As for the no-tap tournament, I didn’t have the night I had last week, but still shot 676 “scratch,” which might be in line for a prize once handicap is figured in (I believe I had 745 with handicap).
I met my siblings for a birthday breakfast this morning (a departure from our tradition because I have another function later today), and my little sister (I’m just going to call my half-sister my big sister…who cares if we’re only half related? 😀 ) had a surprise for me with her gift: the key to a second locker. This should lighten the load for stuff like buses considerably, but I’ll still be bringing balls home to clean; I often have more time to take care of ball maintenance when I get home than I do at the center after bowling.
Desk printout don’t lie…
The first time anything connected to a bowling score of mine said 300. Yes, it was the Wednesday Summer Mixed League’s no-tap tournament, and yes, I had five no-tap strikes in it, but the pressure is still similar when you’re actually trying for it. The funny thing is that it happened on my birthday, with Dick Asacker, a former association director, saying he hoped I got a 300 when he gave me his birthday wishes on Facebook, and I told a couple of other people on Facebook who wished me a happy birthday in a similar manner that I might get one that way. I guess some things were meant to be. 😀
I got first in the first game side pot (for the 189 average and under males, and I just was barely at the cutoff), threw a 259 second game to take second in that side pot, but then faltered because there was only Al Cochrane from my winter league (and bowled summer league on Shawn’s team) on my pair with me, and, with the pace of bowling quicker than I might like, only shot 186 last game. The last game proved costly, as Ron Haynes threw a set somewhere in the 760s to beat my 745. I still won $20 for second for a haul of $30 total, so, with entry being $13 (including side pots), I came out ahead. And nobody in the building had the night Harry Thibeault had…a no-tap 900 series to take first in the male 190 and over division.
I’m always looking for ways to promote my blog, and I found “The Tournament Source” has a good links list, but I have to give them a reciprocal link to get listed, and the way I had to do it is with an image linked to their site. Therefore, I had to add an image widget with one of their images (one that fits, as they have a couple of sizes available) with the image linked to their page. I’ll comment when I know I’m listed there.
The site is mostly a state-by-state tournament listing, so this site can be useful, too. I thought I saw you could list one event for free, so if you’re running a tournament in the future, you may want to check this site out.
Note: I can’t get the image widget to set a target for the image’s link, so it opens in the same window/tab; you may want to right-click the image to open it in a new window or tab.
“Froot Loops” ended up tied with just “C and S” for 7th place in the Wednesday Summer Mixed standings. I remembered to keep the prize list that was decided on, and, calculating the split of the 7th and 8th place prize money, we’re getting back about $69/bowler (there’s always a bit extra in the envelopes, as well).
“3 Kings and 1 Queen” overtook “Don’t Blink” in the first place match for the league championship, so congratulations to the core group of Danielle Barros, Ken Holmgren, Jim Young, and “Hawk” Earle, as well as their sub, Willie Crocker.
In the five years I’ve been back in bowling, an outing with my brother around my birthday has become a sort of tradition, and we took care of that today. The outing came about quite unintentionally, however, as we had tickets for the “Futures At Fenway” minor league doubleheader, but it was raining in Brockton all morning, so we were doubtful they were going to play (they ended up playing, after all).
My day was, for the most part, a struggle with an inconsistent release, and it affected my spare game as well. For scores, I had a 140 first game, my first game under 150 in some time. The memorable part of the day for us, however, came in the third game; I had an average-ish 180, but my brother threw a personal-best 172 and was actually in position to win the game with the first two in the 10th (he got the first, but not the second). To our recollection, it was also the first time my brother threw a turkey (three strikes in a row), starting in the 6th frame; some of you may have seen the photo of the scoring monitor on Facebook.
My Week 13 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
Yes, I thought I’d do better than just one pin over my average for the night, but where I had more games over 200 than under 200 over the last three weeks of this league, I can’t really complain. I’m ready to proclaim myself ready for the fall/winter bowling season coming.
Result: 202-201-166=569
Final average (39 games): 189
Average for last 9 games: 200
Shawn was crushing in the first game, running ten before leaving the 10 pin for a 289 and taking the game handily, but my team rallied for the other two games, so we know we ended up tied for 7th but not how many other teams we are tied with. There are definitely worse things than tying for 7th in a 20 team league, so I’ll definitely take this. 😀
One thing I wanted to improve on over the summer was converting on my single pin spares, and that goal was accomplished, as I made 76.4% of my single pin spares where I only made 68.7% of them last winter. Particularly telling was my single 10 pin: I made better than 2 out of every 3 10 pins, where I only made 53.3% of them last winter season.
The most important thing, however, is something I don’t really put a number on: I had perfect attendance again for my 9th straight league, and I take particular joy in being perfect this summer, considering where I was with my health. 😀
After a sweep of “Eileen’s Wenches,” “Froot Loops” are tied with “C and S” (led by my winter league secretary, Shawn) for 7th place, and said team will be our opponents this week due to this being position week. The match is for 7th place, because the top six teams are at least ten points ahead of us. For worst case scenarios, there are four teams, “Red Sox,” “The Oddballs,” “Eileen’s Wenches,” and Team 20, tied four points behind us, so if two of those teams sweep, the worst we can do by not winning points is 11th.
At the top, “Don’t Blink” lead “3 Kings and 1 Queen” by four points, so the latter team can tie by winning six points (not sure what happens in case of a tie for the league championship) or win outright with seven or eight points. “4 Wishers” are six behind the leaders, and can only hope for a three-way tie for first if they sweep “Nightouts.”
My Week 12 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
I’m finding that I’m gaining a measure of consistency back this summer. This was the second time this summer that I’ve posted back-to-back 600 series, and I didn’t have a series that scored as high as tonight all last winter; you had to go back to my 700 to end last summer to find a higher-scoring night for me.
Result: 191-211-224=626
Average (36 games): 189
Average for last 9 games: 198
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 592
Team took all eight, but the second game was interesting, as I had to convert a baby split, then get one more pin on the fill than the other team’s anchor did; I left the baby again, but the other anchor left three pins on the deck to give us the single pin win. Berta nearly had her first 200 game by ending the night with a 199.
Keith Tantillo was kind enough to inform me that Danny Khuu threw a 300 game this weekend at East Providence Lanes in the NEBA event. The match play results posted by NEBA showed that Khuu finished in the top 16, with Dave Debiase of Wallingford, CT defeating Alex Aguiar 258-225 for the title. In addition to Aguiar and Khuu, Donie Corneau and Rich Fulton were the other Westgate Lanes league bowlers that cashed in the event.
Brockton Bowling Association Hall of Famer Ed Roberts led Team USA in a domination of the Super Senior division of the 50th annual Lee Evans Tournament of the Americas this week at Sawgrass Lanes in Tamarac, FL (outside of Ft. Lauderdale), winning four of the five possible gold medals and a silver medal in the event he didn’t win. Roberts lost his first event, men’s singles, to Hilton Nunez of the Dominican Republic, but rallied in the other events, winning men’s doubles with Jerry Teel and mixed doubles with Lucy Sandelin before capping off the tournament with the gold medals in the team event (Carol Teel was the other team member) and men’s all-events.
The Tournament of the Americas is an annual invitational tournament conducted by the Pan-American Bowling Confederation (PABCON) and its member bowling federations. For full results, please visit the tournament website. As full final team and all-events standings had yet to be posted at press time, a Miami Herald report was also used in the preparation of this post.
After splitting the points with “Don’t Blink,” “Froot Loops” sit in a three-way tie for 12th place with “RPMM’s” and Team 20 with two weeks to go. Of these three teams, my team has the highest handicap pinfall, which might come into play in determining Week 13’s match-up. We sit 30 points behind “Don’t Blink,” and our split had the effect of bringing the league championship back into doubt, as “3 Kings and 1 Queen” now trail “Don’t Blink” by only six points.
“Eileen’s Wenches” will be our final set opponent next week. As for the match-ups at the top of the standings, “Don’t Blink” has “RPMM’s,” while “3 Kings and 1 Queen” have “Woobundys”.
My Week 11 bowling, frame-by-frame (Linked to BowlSK sheet)
Going into tonight, I knew I wanted to at least be one thing: clean. With that, I succeeded, with only two open frames all night, both on splits. While the night didn’t score that high, I was satisfied that the night matched my best clean frame performance ever with the 28 out of 30 clean. 😀
Result: 223-188-195=606
Average (33 games): 187
Average for last 9 games: 189
Next week’s AVG+1 score: 576
It seemed my team was going to carry the day, but then one member of my team faltered while everyone on the other team shot at least 200 to take the third game by enough for total and the four point split.
After winning only two points from “Who’s On First,” “Froot Loops” are now in 13th place, two points ahead of “Wild Samoans,” but 30 points behind the leaders, “Don’t Blink” (our opponents tomorrow night), who lead “3 Kings and 1 Queen” by 8 points (a full week).
The People’s Tournament reported that Gary Maharne (AMF Silver Lanes, 176 avg.) was the winner of the event held on July 22 at Westgate Lanes. Maharne defeated Brandon Tantillo (Westgate Lanes, 186 avg.) in the title match by a score (with handicaps) of 207-195. As for other Westgate Lanes bowlers, Dennis Johnson (183 avg.) and Michael Reed (175 avg.) also cashed.
The PBA reported that Chris Monroy of Holden, MA, whose first NEBA title came at Westgate Lanes, finished 6th in this weekend’s East Region Appletree Classic held at the Mid-County Bowling and Entertainment Center in Middletown, DE. Scott Newell of Deland, FL defeated Rick Graham of Lancaster, PA by a score of 194-165 in the title match. The tournament was contested on the USBC Masters oil pattern.
Ray alerted me to a new ball company named Lordfield, which appears to be based out of Korea, but is on the list of ball companies registered with the PBA, so I’ve updated the “Ball Sites” listing to include the link to their website. While I was at it, I gave the list a cursory examination for dead links, and found I’ve had to update the one for Visionary, so the link to that company’s site works again.
Note: I am vague about whether the company’s name should be one word or two words, since the site uses both forms of it in various places.
The Tenth Board 
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