BBC Tournament - Full Report
{ 12-16-02 }

Holiday Springs Lanes Margate, FL.

This weekend the BBC held a tournament at Holiday Springs Lanes. I bowled on Sunday at noon. The lanes here are particularly slick, so I decided to start by playing directly down 6 or 7 with good speed, standing at 19. I used my Nighthawk, and bowled very well in this round.

In the first game, I alternated spares and strikes throughout, throwing a three-bagger at the end for a 217. This game was bowled on the end pair, 31 and 32. We then moved to 25 and 26, and the lanes were a little tighter, so I moved with my feet out to about 18, and started playing up the 5 board. I went strike, spare, spare, open, before throwing the next 7 strikes for a nice 237 game.

At this point, I was leading the squad in both the handicap and scratch divisions. Unless someone had a very good game, I was going to be in. The third game, on 29 and 30, was another game much like the first game where I alternated spares and strikes, all the way up to the 8th frame, where from that frame I struck out for a 218.

I wound up finishing the squad at + 71, good enough to make the auto-cut in both divisions. But it was a lot closer then I thought, as two other players were really close to that score.

Overall, I bowled very well here, and was very pleased with my performance up to this point. I only missed one spare, a 2-8, where I chopped the 2 off of the 8.

Going into the finals, I figured that because the scores were not so high in the afternoon, that the scores wouldn't be all that high in the finals. Boy, was I wrong. Scoring was extremely high for this particular evening.

I began the final block playing a very similar line than before, only I was standing on 18 to start. The first game I went strike, spare, strike, spare, and the next five for a 238 game and a very nice start to the tournament. We started on 21 and 22, and then moved to 25 and 26, where the lanes were playing a little bit tighter then before. I moved out to about 17 and just tried to keep my hand behind the ball as much as possible. If I "overturned" the ball, it would most likely go into it's hook / roll pattern too early, crossing over for a bad hit. This happened to me only once in the third frame, where I was lucky enough to leave a 6 pin. I had a four bagger in the middle of some more spares and a few strikes for a good 225 game. The third game I hit a bit of a snag and only shot 190, after back-to-back opens in the fifth and sixth frames, where I missed a 10-pin to the left, and had left a 4-9 spilt after going a bit high the frame before. The fourth game my feet got a little fast in trying to convert a 10-pin in the second frame, and I wound up missing that spare. Then I was able to make up for it at the end with a 4-bagger to finish with a 215 game.

Due to the very high scores, my +80 for 4 was only good enough for 14th place in the scratch division (Wow!). However, in the handicap division, I finished in 4th. My overall performance in the finals was very good, too bad everyone else bowled good, too.

- Joe Tex

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