Thursday League Roll Off

I have to say, in spite of all the ups and downs of the season, I enjoyed this season very much. I have learned much through out the season, least of all, how to keep your emotions steady. I have a tendency of being very hard on myself if things don’t go my way which often leads to me getting angry and start to throw the hell out of the ball. This is obviously not a good thing, but I’ve got a lot better at keeping cool and staying on a more even keel.

I am getting better with the newer release, though I had real problems thumbing last night which had a marked effect on the ball reaction I was seeing. If I get the ball off my hand clean, there is no thumbing, the ball gets through the heads clean, picks up in the mid lane and reads the back end well. If I don’t, the ball start thumbing straight off my hand, gets through the heads with very little mid lane read and a very soft back end read, which usually ends in the ball hitting the 3 pin flush resulting in a horrible wash out. Not good. Some thing to work and I know how to work on it, so its just getting time in on the lanes.

So, back to the roll off. Unfortunately, though not surprising, we didn’t win a quarter this year. I’ve been pretty spoiled so far in my short bowling career, in that I’ve won a quarter in every league I’ve bowled in, so not winning one this league is a little disappointing. That being said, there were some really tough teams in the league this year. I believe the end of each quarter saw the top 5 teams all within 3 points of each other. We use a 7 point system: 2 per game won + 1 for total pins. So three pins is VERY close indeed. It would be interesting to use a 28 point system: 2 pts per match up, per game + 1 for total match (total of 7 per player) on top of the old system. This would make each match more hotly contested and would eliminate the possibility of a team skating through the season on the efforts of just one bowler. The whole team succeeds together, or fails together. Interesting concept at least.

I believe we finished around 10th or 11th out of 14 teams, which is not the best finish at all. Oh well, there’s always next season, right?

So this last week, we bowled one of the highest handicapped teams in the league with a total of some 130 pins all up to our 40 some pins. Needless to say, these guys are tough to beat if even one of them bowls well. Last night, the all bowled well. Meanwhile, I was not bowling so well and neither was my wife, leaving our partner to carry the load by himself.

I believe I bowled a 543 for the night, Jennifer bowled a 513 and Robert bowled a 626. That’s quite a gap! I was happy in that I bowled above my average, but I was very disappointed because I think I only hit 3 spares all night! I left WAY too many splits and I missed all the simple clusters. I believe the only spares I picked up were single pin leaves. Not good. I would love to get over to the center and bowl an hour a day just shooting spares for a game or two then working on fundamentals and timing for a couple of games as well. Spares are the only thing stopping me from REALLY scoring well. I usually get close to a 200 game every game, the difference is almost always just a single open frame. If I can eliminate that one open frame, 600 is easily within reach.

I’m looking forward to the start of the summer league for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I get to experiment with our shot a little bit. At the moment the shot we put down is not exactly legal and for some reason, the old lane guy wants to keep it that way by cutting every wick that enters the center. All I want to do is create a shot that similar in nature, but legal. That’s it. I don’t want to create a shot thats impossible to play; I don’t want to create a shot thats totally different from what we currently have. I just want a shot that is legal. This will mean that the lines we all play will have to change a little, but once we find a new line that should be fine. Obviously, we will have to take a vote at the start of the league about the nature of the shot. If we all agree on creating an out of bounds, then I’m happy to create that. I don’t care. All I want is a legal shot.

Secondly, I once again get to bowl with a couple of the better bowlers in the house AND they happen to have become great friends over the last two years as well. One guy will only be subbing for my wife until she feels she’s ready to bowl again. With the constant problems she’s had with her wrist and her ball fit, she’s not enjoyed the last 7 – 8 months of bowling. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel for her, so its just a matter of getting her healed up and putting a ball in her hand that fits her well. I not confident enough in my ability to do that for her, especially with the archaic equipment I have available to me at the moment. I plan to do something about the equipment within the next year, but until then, we’ll be sending our equipment to a shop in Newport, KY, just south of Cincinnati, OH. I can’t wait to see her bowling well. I like to see Jennifer bowl well, because it pushes me to bowl well also, but also because if she’s bowling well, she actually wants to bowl which makes that much more fun to bowl with her!

Roll on the summer!


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