Thoughts & Results - 2008 Southern California Scratch 20 Gamer

Labels: Blog, Bowling Tournaments, General, Results
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 0 comments

This past weekend I took the time out of my very busy schedule to have a day to myself and the bowling lanes. I haven't done any tournaments in a while so it was good to get away and even better to have bowled good and cashed. Yeah!

The event was a marathon 20 game tournament bowled on two patterns. The first 10 games were easy the second were hard. We had some really good bowlers in the field and some local guys like myself and others in my local San Diego leagues. It's nice to see local faces and it's nice to bowl in tournaments where I don't have to drive hundreds of miles. The event was up in Vista just 30 minutes away from home. If only they were all this close. :) Anyway the tournament was definitely long and grueling but not that bad. After game 13 I opened up a little hole in my finger next to my nail so that finger has hurt for a few days now but it's been manageable.

To my surprise after 10 games of the tournament I was in third place at +386. I started the day crushing the pocket and not carrying. shooting scores of 206 and 214 with virtually flawless shots. Finally game three a little oil carry-down changed my entry angle a bit and the pins started falling on equally flawless shots. I swear this was probably one of my most comfortable sets of games that I've bowled in a long time. I was spot on hitting my marks. I don't remember getting any luck at all because I kept hitting my spots so frequently. It was nice to bowl good.

The 2nd block was totally different though. I found the middle of the lane where I played the first block to have no room inside which made my line tighter. The break point was also further outside then it was for the first block and I was having trouble adjusting my feet and trajectory and still remaining locked into to the line as it was tighter. I opened up the second block with a solid 145 and then followed up with improving games but still bad ones of 179 and 181. Blah! After continually struggling and slipping to +242 and down in place to 10ish I finally made a move outside to try and take advantage of the carry-down oil and see if I could play and up and in shot. Sure enough it was there. I finished up with a 258, 224, 224, and 190 to inch back up into 8th place and finish in the money at +338. I was very happy with my performance even though I was overall minus for the second block.

There ended up being a very lengthy and controversial forum posting over on the PBA forums about this event and I added this commentary to the thread.

...Virtually everyone [the bowlers] was plus for the first block and only a few were plus for the 2nd block. Only three lefties were plus for the second and one of them barely. Sure two of them bowled great but as far as I can tell no one bowled amazing on each block DeVaney bowled probably the most consistently at +300 +200. I bowled amazing on the 1st at +386 (top righty on the block) but stunk it up on the 2nd at -48 and most everyone that had a good block did similar to me, good on one block not so good on the other. The point here is that we had a high scoring block and a low scoring block and a few people regardless of side matched up better on one then the other and nobody ran away with the tournament… not even Zarcoff [who eventually won].

Considering a 226 average won the tournament that shows that this wasn’t a house pattern scorefest, and considering most everyone was plus or close to it shows that the event was playable for most all styles; 2-hand or 1-hand; left or right, whatever or whatever. Doesn’t Devaney manage to average mid 220’s on virtually anything you throw at him no matter how tough it is? If he couldn’t average more than 226 and more than 80% of the field out averaged 195 then the conditions seemed awful fair to me.

I had a great time! I played brackets and lost a few dollars, surprised myself by getting a pinch of sidepot money, bowled my first marathon event, adjusted to two completely different patterns throughout the day on evolving conditions, threw a 145 game and didn’t throw in the towel knowing I could make it up (which we all know you can’t do in a 5-gamer). I even had a burger waiting for me at lunch without me even having to wait in line for it. Standings were updated throughout the day, brackets were posted throughout the day, we weren’t bogged down by lanes breaking down, this tournament was fun and provided the best of everything in my opinion and I’d be ticked off if I have to wait another 3 years for an encore.

I don’t have a single complaint about the event.

That was awesome about the burger by the way. I finished bowling game ten packed up a bit and then over the intercom came a call for me to come get my burger... just like that! Incredible. :)

Anyway, the thread on the forums was pretty critical of the event but I think it boils down to only a few people there being jerks about it. My scores are listed below and a complete rundown of results can be found at Tracking The Bowling News.

My Game By Game Scores

This is but one of many tournaments and leagues I've bowled in. other events can be found in the tournament archives and future events are listed in my upcoming bowling tournament page. My bowling stats are poorly organized here if you want to look at them.

Posted by Brian at 12:50 PM