This weeks road report comes to you from lovely Centerville, Oh ( just outside of Dayton ). The Midwest Region is off this week, and since I already had last weekend off it was time to go looking for something to bowl. I bowled this tournament a few years ago and really enjoyed it over here. Poelking Lanes South is a pretty good size bowling center ( 52 lanes ) and the area is pretty nice. They have wood lanes and ball returns that are fairly far back on the approach ( something that I love !!! ). It was nice to have last weekend off, especially with Sunday being Fathers Day and my birthday. Had a wonderful weekend with my kids ( Kaitlyn and I went to see Cars and it was unbelievably good ), but now its time to get back to work

Friday July 23rd

Practice for the regional wasn’t until 4:00 today, so I didn’t have to leave very early. I’m running a few local events on the 4th of July weekend, so I spent part of the morning working on e-mails promoting those events. It was only a 4 ½ hour drive to Dayton, which is not bad at all. I got there about a half hour before practice, unloaded my equipment and changed clothes. We are bowling on regional pattern #5 this week ( shark ), and I’m looking forward to that. Like I’ve said before, the long pattern is my favorite. I bowled for about an hour in practice, using a variety of balls ( Agents, Fired-Ups, Thunderstrucks, X-Factor ). The one variable that wasn’t planned on was the fact that the bowling center just re-coated their lanes about a week ago. Randy Hart, the Central Region laneman decided to use the low volume based on this. All in all it was probably the right decision to make. If you use a higher volume, the heads/mids burn up and all of the oil goes to the back. The best thing to do is let them hook, and hook they did !!! There was a ton of friction on the lane, but at least you knew it was going to hook. After practice Steve Jaros and I walked across the street to Fuddruckers for an early dinner before the pro-am ( no time for hooters ). We ate dinner and chatted for a while, then headed back to the bowl. The turnout for the pro-am was very good. They used about 16-18 pair of lanes and all of them were pretty full. We had a couple of groups that had an absolute blast. I had Eugene McCune to my right and PBIII to my left. Throughout the night all 3 of us did trick shots, picked up splits with the ams and basically had a great time. I’ve been pretty lucky this summer with the pro-am bowlers. Every week it seems like I get to meet a lot of great people and have a lot of fun. This week was no exception.
After the pro-am Eugene and I hung out in the bar with a few of the pro-am bowlers and had a great time. Unfortunately we were on A squad, so I had to cut the night short and headed back to the hotel. I brought a bunch of work with me so I spent some time on the computer getting caught up on some e-mails, then went to bed. Since the Central Region only cuts to the top 16 for match play ( no semi-final round like the Midwest ), I better bring it tomorrow !

Saturday July 24th

I actually felt pretty good physically this morning. My chiropractic treatment has been doing wonders for me, and I feel as good as I have in about 5 years. Usually my mornings involve a lot of pain and take me forever to get loose, but lately I have felt great. I was bowling with 3 guys that I didn’t know. I know the majority of the guys in the Central Region, but I didn’t know any of the guys I was bowling with today. One of them no-showed, which made us a 3on a pair following 4. That really pisses me off when somebody enters a tournament, then doesn’t show. It screws everything up. Now our pace was off for the entire day. Anyway, during practice the lanes seemed to be very similar to the practice session yesterday. I started with my Fired-Up with no hole, hoping to blend out the backend reaction. Like I said there was a ton of friction on the lane and I just needed to blend it out until we got some carry down. My look was so-so to start with, but my angles weren’t very good. I had three blower 7-10s, a blower 4-10 and a 4-9 the first game to have 148. Missed the pocket once and struck twice. Not a very good start !!! The only positive was that this is my favorite pattern and I’ve got 7 games left. The next pair was much better. I switched to my weaker Agent for Game 2 and went 248 with a 4-pin and two 10s. Game 3 was very similar with another blower 7-10 mixed in for a 245. By the time Game 4 rolled around the lanes were already starting to get fried. I was already in around 25-28 through the arrows and everything was burning up. During that game I left a 3-6, which I missed and a 4-6-7. Just wasn’t a very good game. Game 5 was even worse. The left lane was on fire and I couldn’t get the ball through the fronts cleanly enough. I left a 4 pin, five dimes and a 3-6-7 ( which I wrapped ) for 190. Now I was down to +35 when the scoring pace was around a 220 average to make the match play cut. I made the turn to the low end for Game 6 and decided to go for broke. I jumped into around 6th arrow and got more aggressive. It obviously worked because I went front 6, solid 9, and struck to the fill ball for 278. That got me to + 113 after 6 and got me back in the cut number. The next game was filled with some stupidity on my part. I went front 5, then got lazy. I guess I relaxed, thinking I was safely in the cut. I have a tendency to do that and lose focus sometimes. I went back to back big-4’s in the 6th and 7th and came crashing back to earth ! I doubled in the 8th and 9th to turn things around but rang a 10 in the 10th to finish with 219. Overall the score wasn’t bad, but I think you all would agree it should have been more, considering. With one to go I sat at +132, but I still needed good finish. I started Game 8 with a triple, then went 4-pin, double, ring 10, strike, ring 10, solid 9 to finish with 226. That was a very frustrating game because I stayed aggressive and made good shots, just didn’t get the good breaks when I needed them. I finished up at +158 for the block, which was good for 8th place on A squad ( which on paper was the stronger squad ). The lanes got pretty fried out there and guys were forced way in pretty quick. Fortunately for me, I like that. That seems to be where I’m the most comfortable.

After we got done Steve and I walked over to the mall to walk around for a while and grab some lunch. We wasted about an hour, then headed back to hotel to chill out for a while. I got some more work done on the computer and watched a little baseball. I felt like taking a nap, but I knew that if I laid down, that would be all she wrote for me. So I headed back to the bowl to watch B squad. Their scoring pace wasn’t quite as high as ours and Parker Bohn ended up being the number at +128. At that point I congratulated Eugene ( McCune ) for bowling well enough to lead qualifying, and drawing Parker !!! That’s just the way it goes I guess. After the qualifying was over we headed into the bar for a little while. They had karaoke in there and Eugene was singing ( badly !!! ). After a few beers and a pizza I was ready to crash. I went back to the room, got yet some more work done, then went to bed.

Sunday July 25th

Well since the Central Region doesn’t bring all of the cashers back for 5 more games on Sunday, it was right into the Round of 16, best 3 out of 5 match against Mike Norris from Detroit. Mike is a pretty accomplished regional, mega-buck and action player and he likes to play the lanes similar to me. I knew we were going to tear the pair up, it was just how long it would take. During practice I had a hard time getting my timing and tempo consistent. I took a look out ( around 5-6-7 ) and it wasn’t too bad. At least it could be another option if I needed it. I started out just like yesterday, playing in around 23-25 with my stronger Agent this time. I started out washout, strike, 2-pin, then a 6-bagger. I big 4’d in the tenth but since Mike struggled finding a ball reaction I won comfortably 220-141. Game 2 was a huge turnaround for both of us. Mike got lined up and started striking and I started throwing the ball like #@*!. I bowled a horrible physical game and lost 232-183. The worst part was now Mike had all of the momentum and my physical game wasn’t sharp at all. Once I started writing my notes on how bad I was throwing it, my physical game started getting better. I guess that reminded me what I was doing wrong. It worked for a 235-224 win in game 3. I bowled a much better game, and when Mike rang a 10 in the 9th, that pretty much was the game. I kept the momentum going in my direction in Game 4, going strike, 7 pin, solid 9, 7-bagger, ring 10 for 257. Mike actually bowled a pretty good game, getting no breaks for 213. I won the match 3 games to 1 and moved on to the next round.

The Round of 8 was against Kerry Kreft, a regional titleist from Hazel Park, Mi. I hadn’t watched Kerry bowl all weekend so I had no idea what to expect. My look on the fresh wasn’t very good ( as usual ! ), and I caught myself bowling defensively again. My physical game wasn’t very good again this round, the pair hooked more than the last pair and the approach on the left lane was very tacky. All of that combined didn’t make me feel very comfortable. I won an ugly Game 1 213-198 with a couple of strikes that probably shouldn’t have been. If Kerry hadn’t struggled early in the game, I would’ve been down 0-1. Game 2 was sort of a different story, kind of. I went 2-pin, 7 bagger ( with two trip 4s ) to take a huge lead in the game. All I needed was a mark in one of the last 2 frames and I move on to the semis. Of course I gagged it off somehow going big 4 in the 9th and 4-6-7 in the 10th to lose 222-221. I pride myself on my ability to bowl under pressure, and I’m very confident in those situations, but for some reason I threw 2 of the worst pressure shots of my life in that situation. Very disappointing !!! Oh well, it was on to Game 3. I started out with a washout-spare, blower 7, 4 pin, and a 2-4-5. It wasn’t looking very good. I was far from lined up and Kerry had an early triple. Then I found something, sort of. I struck on the right lane, then tripped a 4 on the left lane. That turned out to be the break of the day. After that I threw the next 4 and finished with a 254-208 winner. I’m not sure that Kerry didn’t outbowl me during our match, so I felt lucky I was moving on.

The semi-final game was against Brad Angelo ( PBA rookie of the year, former PBA point leader, former Team USA member, etc…..). Brad was just coming off of a 300 game to wrap up his Round of 8 match against Greg Thompson ( a name for everybody to watch for in the future !!! ), so I knew I had to have my striking shoes on. During practice I noticed the right lane was tighter downlane. I chose to use my stronger Agent on the right lane and the one I had been using all weekend on the left. I started the match and went left a 4-7 in the first. When I got up on the right lane I was sure I’d made the right decision, but a 2-4-8-10 made me rethink that. After Brad went X, spare,spare, he started striking ( using 2 different balls on each lane ). I struck on the left lane, then went to the other Agent on the right lane, moving a little deeper to get away from the hang. I struck to the 8th, but so did Brad. In the 9th I leaked the ball a little to the right, it caught the hang, and I left a 2-8. That pretty much ended my day. Brad struck out for a 267-242 win and eventually went on to win the title against Parker Bohn III. I pocketed $1400.00 for a weekends worth of work and headed home somewhat happy. There’s no shame in losing to somebody like Brad, but I should’ve been smarter as to how I played the lanes. Another lesson learned I guess.

The fans turned out in very good numbers this weekend, and I would like to thank them for their support. Even though I’m not from that region, I had pretty good fan support behind me and it was great to see. I especially want to thank Kenny for standing back there rooting me on all weekend. Thanks buddy !!!

I want to thank Joe Poelking, Jeff Zaccula and the entire staff at Poelking Lanes South for a wonderfully hosted event. I also want to thank Tanner Heating & Air for being the main sponsor for an event that paid very well. Without you guys, we wouldn’t have a tour to bowl on.

Next weekend I have a couple tournaments that I’m running and I’m spending some time with the guys that are bringing this site to you. We hope to have everything up and running soon, so thanks for you patience. I will probably do a small report on the PBA Sweeper that I’m running next Sunday ( but not bowling in ). Other than that, the next event will be in Jonesboro, AR. Until then, take care and bowl up a STORM !!!