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Monday February 19th
Well Monday was my last day at home for a few weeks, so I used it running errands all day and trying to get things ready for the stretch run on Tour. I had another great weekend with the Kids, which always relaxes me and makes it tough to hit the road again. I spent all morning Monday doing e-mails and putting some fan club packages together to ship out ( for those of you that are interested, check out Club300 at jeffcarterbowling.com ). I headed to the post office, but I didn’t realize that Monday was President’s Day so the post office was closed. Since I couldn’t take care of that, I went to see my Chiropractor ( Dr. Foelkerts at Sherman Chiropractic ) for some much needed treatment. It had been almost 3 months since I’d been to see him and I was starting to really break down. He worked on my back, neck, hip, shoulder and right hand, then I received the laser therapy and muscle stimulation for about 20 minutes. After that I was good to go for the next two weeks ! I headed to the pro-shop to hang out with Craig for a while, then headed to Hooters with my buddies Matt and Dave. My game plan was to hit the road around 6:00 pm and drive about half way, so I ran out to Best Buy to talk to the “Geek Squad” to figure out what was wrong with my new laptop. They couldn’t find what the problem was, and it was starting to look bleak once again. I ended up leaving without having the problem resolved, so I’m without a laptop for the next two weeks again. If you couldn’t tell I’m not real happy with Gateway or Best Buy right now !!! Once I got out of there I headed home to pack, load my truck and hit the road. I finally got out of town around 8:00 pm and drove to Dayton, OH. I found the closest Motel 6 ( sponsor plug ) and stopped for the night. |
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Tuesday February 20th
I woke up Tuesday morning and hit the road to Parkersburg. I got into town around noon, unloaded my truck and did some work on my equipment. Mark got the lanes ready for us around 2, and I headed down to practice. Since we were on Cheetah this week, I needed all of the work that I could get in. This is by far my worst pattern and since I’m in a freefall in the point list, I needed to find something to get me through this week. The pattern hooked a lot more than usual and I wasn’t very encouraged about the week. Hopefully the pattern tames down for qualifying and things improve. I practiced for about 3 hours, and then headed to the Econo Lodge to check in. After that I went over to the mall to get a haircut and I grabbed dinner at Chick-Fil-A. I volunteered for the special Charity Challenge pro-am this week, so I had to get right back to the bowl. We were teamed up with 4 bowlers for a team pro-am, with the proceeds going to United Way. I drew the “Sudden Link” team ( www.suddenlink.com ). I was bowling with Joe Hendershot, Rachale Wiggins, Stacy Martin and Tracy Wiggins. They informed me that they were the lowest average team in the field and I knew right away that we were there strictly for fun and the charity. We had a great time all night long and actually bowled fairly well. After the pro-am I grabbed some dinner and went back to the hotel to watch some TV and get some sleep. |
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Wednesday February 21st
I went to the bowl Wednesday morning to watch the TQR and to borrow Schlem’s computer for a while so I could do some work. One of our sales reps from Storm ( Steve Todd ) was in town for the week, so Steve, Schlem and I headed over to Buffalo Wild Wings for some lunch. We had to drop some stuff of at UPS, then went back to the bowl to get ready to practice. I practiced for about an hour and the pattern was certainly tamer, but I still only had a couple of good options to go with. We decided to drill a Jolt Pearl, a Passion and another Fired Up. The Jolt Pearl was a ball I figured I would need this week, but the other two were pretty much gambles that if they worked great…if not, no big deal. I quickly grabbed some dinner, then back to the room to watch the Illinois / Michigan basketball game. It was the last halftime performance for Chief Illiniwek, and I didn’t want to miss it. I grew up watching him perform, and due to some new NCAA rules the U of I wasn’t going to be able to host a tournament if that continued. Of course Florida State can have an Indian mascot that rides a horse to the center of the field and spike a flaming spear into the ground, but we can’t have a ceremonial dance that honors all of the tribes that made up the Illiniwek Indian nation. It makes no sense to me. Anyway, Illinois won the game and should be in good shape to make the NCAA tournament now. After that was over I flipped over to watch some UFC Fighting and then got some sleep |
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Thursday February 22nd
I went to the bowl early Thursday morning to work out the new balls and get ready to start. Like I said, Cheetah has been my most difficult pattern so I really wanted to get off to a good start. I started with the Jolt Pearl, standing around 15 and going through 6-7 at the arrows. My ball speed was pretty firm and I was trying to not hit the ball much at all, controlling the reaction downlane. My biggest problem on this pattern is the fact that my normal release causes to much direction change on this pattern, so we tried to control that with a weaker ball this week.
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| ROUND 1 |
225 |
226 |
289 |
279 |
218 |
187 |
214 |
1638 |
27th |
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Thursday, February 22nd -- Round of 64 Block 1
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Game 1 – Three 10-pins and a 2-8-10 in the 11th. Not a bad start for me on the fresh. Ball reaction was a little weak, but I was still feeling out what I was going to be able to do.
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Game 2 – 4-6-7 in the first, 4-pin in the 2nd, three straight dimes in the 5th-7th frames. This pair hooked a little more ( other side of a split house ). I didn’t move quite fast enough to avoid a split in the first, but after that my ball reaction kept getting better.
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Game 3 – 10-pins in the 1st and 12th. Finally I put a game together on the Cheetah pattern !!!
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Game 4 – 4-pin in the 8th. Other than the shot in the 8th that I over hit, every ball was high flush for this game. After four games I was in 2nd, the highest I’ve ever been on this pattern.
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Game 5 – 4-7-10 in the first, 3-6-10 in the 6th, ring 10 in the 10th. This pair hooked quite a bit more and I continued to chase it left. I was still using my Jolt Pearl, but even it was going sideways downlane right now. If I moved in with it, it wouldn’t hook….so I was sort of trapped unless I made a ball change.
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Game 6 –
Blower 7-10 in the first, 10-pin in the 3rd, 3-6 in the 5th, 2-pin in the 7th, 10-pin in the 9th, 10th and 11th. Notice a theme with this game ??? Yeah, the right lane was brutal. This was also the pair that Jim Pratt started on using a plastic ball and then a urethane Blue Hammer. All that did was push what little oil there was down to the breakpoint area. I chased this pair back right, but I took a big hit on this game.
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Game 7 – Solid 9 in the first, 4-pin in the 2nd, 3-6 in the 5th ( which I chopped ), solid 9 in the 6th, ring 10 in the 10th. This pair was similar to the last pair ( Pratt bowled on this pair also ), so I ended up switching to a T-Road Pearl in the 6th. I was a couple of breaks away from bailing the set out, but it didn’t happen.
After the first round I was in 27th at +238 ( 234.00 ). That wasn’t too bad, but I was in 2nd after 4 games and fell drastically. The 32nd place number was at +222 so I didn’t have much of a cushion to work with. I left the bowl, grabbed some Subway and went back to the room to take a nap for a little while.
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| ROUND 2 |
213 |
226 |
194 |
256 |
228 |
256 |
173 |
1546 |
3184 |
37th |
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Thursday, February 22nd -- Round of 64 Block 2
I started the second round in the same spot as I started the morning round with my Jolt Pearl again. I was hoping to get off to a good start again, but finish the round better this time and make my first career match play appearance on this pattern
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Game 1 – 4-pin in the 1st, 2-10 in the 3rd ( which I converted ), ring 10 in the 6th, 4-9 in the 10th. Pretty typical game for me on the fresh. Made some good shots and got a few bad breaks. The pattern was playing close to the morning round, so I was hoping to catch a few numbers when the lanes transition again.
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Game 2 – 10-pins in the 2nd, 3rd and 6th, solid 9s in the 7th and 11th. I really thought I had a great reaction on this pair. The ball was coming off the gutter pretty strong, but the angles were a little too steep ( which explains the ring 10’s and solid 9’s ).
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Game 3 – 4-7-9 in the 1st, solid 9 in the 3rd, 10-pins in the 6th-8th and the 10th. WOW ! Just another one of those games. Couldn’t get anything going and fell farther in the standings. I was now out of the number.
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Game 4 – 3-6 in the first, 4-10 in the 5th. I have to admit I was starting to think too much about other things after the last game. My mind was shifting to losing my exemption, whether I wanted to be out here anymore and what am I going to do now. I was sort of in “go-through the motions” mode, and that explains the horrible shot in the 5th. I remember standing there thinking “what the hell are you doing” !!! I managed to finish the game off and at least get me headed back in the right direction.
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Game 5 – 4-pin in the 1st, ring 10 in the 4th, 6-10 in the 7th, and another 4-pin in the 10th. The lanes were starting to transition again and I fought changing balls. I kept trying to force the ball through the midlane, and all that did was create an inconsistent reaction.
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Game 6 –
Ring 10’s in the 3rd and 10th. I caught a huge break by catching a great pair for game 6. This pair was tighter and I had more push to the breakpoint. I luckily took advantage of it and moved myself up to 27th with one game to go.
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Game 7 – 3-6-10 in the 1st, 4-9 in the 2nd, 2-8 in the 3rd, 3-4-6-7-9-10 in the 5th, ring 10 in the 7th, solid 9 in the 9th and a blower 7 in the 11th. As good of a break that I got the last game, I got an equally bad break by having to finish on this pair. The right lane was totally on fire, and when I did make a ball change and make a good shot I still left something. This was pretty much the story of my entire season wrapped up into one game: close, but not close enough. I’ve managed to finish in 33rd-40th 5 times now this season, with almost all of them within a couple of hits of making match play. A few breaks here and there and I could possibly have a lot more points and be sitting in much better shape for next year.
After I was done I pretty much fried and even snapped a little. I went into the locker room and slammed a couple of totes on the ground as hard as I could. It’s a good thing that bowling balls are pretty durable because I could have easily shattered a few that night. These collapses have been getting old and quite frankly they are really starting to get to me mentally. I’ve been working harder than ever, but I feel like I’m going in reverse all of the time. I just needed to vent and get the hell out of there. I skipped dinner and went straight back to the room. I was so furious and couldn’t sleep, so I decided to start watching Season 1 of Las Vegas. I watched a little, decided that it was a very good show and ended up watching 8-9 episodes until around 5:00 am when I think I finally passed out.
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Friday, February 23rd
I finally woke up around the crack of noon and I didn’t really want to do anything, but since the post office was closed Monday I still needed to ship out the fan club stuff that I had with me. I tracked down a post office, grabbed some lunch then reluctantly headed to the bowl. I loaded up my equipment except for a triple roller, then watched a little of the match play rounds. I practiced for a few hours between the Rounds of 16 and 8, getting some productive work in. Schlem and I continued to tweak things, mainly focusing on my spine tilt and legs. I started a little more upright and that allowed my timing to fall into place a little better. I actually bowled for about an hour looking down at my feet during the approach. After bowling for a while, Mark Sabatin ( our laneman ) ran the US Open pattern for us to practice on. I practiced for about a half hour on the pattern with Mika, Chris Barnes and several others. I was the only one left of 20 and I had a pretty good look, not that it really mattered since it was a different center. Anyway, I felt better about things after I practiced, then headed to dinner with Brian Kretzer and Chris Johnson at Outback. We ate dinner and had a few beers, then I went back to the room to pack and get ready to leave the next morning.
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Saturday February 24th
I volunteered for the satellite pro-ams this week in Morgantown, WV. It was about a 110 mile drive, so CJ and I hit the road around 9:30 am. We got to Morgantown around 11:00 and were pleasantly surprised to find a hospitality room set up for the 12 of us that would be bowling the 2 pro-ams ( Couch, TJ, Big Wes, BK, CJ, PA, Patrick Girard, Jaros, Del, Brian LeClair, Chief and myself ). They provided food and drink for us all day, which was a nice change of pace. The pro-ams were great, everybody had a great time and we all signed a lot of autographs and took loads of pictures. Both pro-ams had 4 amateurs per pair, so the pace was pretty quick. Between squads I even had time to watch my Illini whoop up on Penn State !!! After the pro-ams were over, the 7 of us that stayed the night checked into the hotel that the proprietor of the center set up for us. I was shocked to walk into a 2 room suite in a very nice local hotel. It’s too bad we can get rooms like this on the road for our normal weeks. We all headed back to the bowl and hung out there for the night. They had an area reserved for us in their sports bar so we ate, drank and watched College Basketball all night. The owners comped everything for us all day / night, so I’d really like to thank them for all of their hospitality ( side note : since Morgantown is a college town, the servers were all UNBELIEVABLE !!! ). It was really nice to be treated so special when all we did was give up about 3 hours of our time. These folks went way out of their way to take care of us and if the opportunity arises, I’ll be going back there again next year.
Well this concludes another week on the road for me. Things aren’t looking very good for me. This week dropped me to 42nd on the points list, so I’ve got a lot of work to do during the last 3 weeks. Luckily for me, we have 2 majors left and all 3 bowling centers are places that I’ve had success before in the past. Somehow I’ve got to get things turned around and headed in the right direction. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, but I have to or lose my job. Next week is going to be a very long week and I need a shift in focus. I’ve got a few ideas that I’m going to try while bowling next week, so I’ll let you know how that works out. I’m trying to hang in there, but it’s getting rougher and rougher every time I shoe up. I’ve never been one to quit at anything, but I’m really starting to doubt if I want to do this anymore. Hopefully my mindset will be changed soon !!! Until next week, Bowl up a Storm !!!
Parkersburg stats
Game count – 14
Average – 227.4
High game – 289
Low game – 173
Strike % - 62 ( 97/157 )
Pocket % - 90 ( 141/157 )
Pocket Strike % - 69 ( 97/141 )
Spare % - 98 ( 44/45 )
Single Pin Spare % - 100 ( 38/38 )
Split % - 8 ( 13/157 )
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