Friday July 21st

Due to the early practice this weekend and a six hour drive, I started driving to Council Bluffs last night after I got done working at King Pin. I drove about half way or so and I tried to time it so that I could get into town about an hour before practice. After passing Des Moines, IA I heard a loud noise coming from the rear of my Yukon and I saw white smoke pouring out or the rear end. I pulled to the shoulder and sure enough, I blew a tire.  Not a very good start to the weekend to say the least.

After a while on the side of the road I finally made it to practice with about 30 minutes to go. Of all the patterns to miss practice on, this would be the one I could least afford this to happen. I don’t match up on Pattern 2 ( Cheetah ) very well at all. I don’t know what it is, but I struggle even when I’m scoring well. I finished 2nd on this pattern last year, but we could hook it that week. During practice I decided that “straighter is greater” and figured that was my best plan of attack. I bowled the early pro-am, then headed to dinner with Steve ( Jaros ). We stopped by Applebee’s on our way back to the hotel and were soon joined by John Slavich and Walt Schaub. After a nice dinner we headed to downtown Omaha to the hotel and I retired to my room to watch the Rangers-Sox game.

Saturday July 22nd

This weekend was joint regional with the Seniors, with our squad being A and the Seniors being B. Last year it was the other way around, and we were on the long pattern. Due to the limited field size we had 5 on a pair, which is a sleep-inducing pace—but with the squads being split we needed to do this to keep from limiting the field to 64 bowlers like last year. I was crossing with Steve Taylor, so I was hoping to get a “road map” off of him all day. I decided to start with a Pyro even though it was still a little sharp for what I wanted. I never seem to guess right on this pattern. When we can hook it I play straight and when you need to pipe it I try and hook it. I guess it’s just me! Anyway I actually got off to a decent start, going triple, 6-10, double. Then a couple of 4 pins should have given me a warning for my Big 4 in the 9th, but of course I was too slow to move. I moved and struck out in the 10th for 219, but I gave a lot of pins away on a high scoring pattern. Game 2 was just a poorly bowled game. Even the shots that struck weren’t very good. I ended up clean for 224 to get to +43 after two ( which was the cash number ). I tried to move in a little in Game 3 and started with a  triple, but I blower 7-10’d in the 4th. I didn’t double again that game for 200 even, falling behind the cut number. Game 4 was more of the same, clean for 203. I tried a Fire Diablo and a Paradigm that game, but I just couldn’t get lined up. I went back to the Pyro for Game 5 and went 209 with a 4-9 in the 3rd. My look was better, but still not good enough. After five games I was +55, 30 pins behind the number. Things weren’t looking good at all but in Game 6 I started to come around. I went triple, solid 9, triple, blower 7, ring 10, 2-4-5 / ring 10 for 233 to get me with 16 pins of the number. Then Game 7 came along and took the wind out of my sails. I never could develop a look on that pair and had another clean 203. Now I was 17 pins out of the number with one game to go, and my look didn’t tell me that I had a big game in me. So I figured I would just go for broke and jump in and hook it. I grabbed a Thunderstruck solid and moved in to around 17-18 to the gutter. I started Game 8 with triple, 2-8, triple, solid 9. After a strike in the 9th I figured a double in the 10th would be a lock, the first hit would get me pretty safe and a mark would put me right at the number. I made a pretty good shot in the 10th and wouldn’t you know it, blower 7-10 !!! All I could say is “you’ve got to be kidding me”. I stood there for what seemed like a half hour figuring the score. If I got one pin I would stay ahead of a couple of guys, but my gut told me that I needed a mark. The only sensible thing to do in this case is to try and throw it hard, but be safe and get the count, just in case. I threw it normal to get the count and bounced the 10 right into the 7 for the spare ! Unbelievable. As it turned out 1 would’ve been enough, but that was a dramatic way to make the cut I thought. After that—I needed Hooters. A group of us headed into Omaha and went to Hooters for lunch and a few cocktails. After lunch I debated on going to the Omaha Royals game that night, but I wasn’t feeling very well and decided to go back to the room and watch the Rangers-Sox game again. After a convincing Rangers win I went to bed early.

Sunday July 23rd

To be perfectly honest with you I planned on showing up Sunday, bowling my 5 games of semi-qualifying and heading home. I still wasn’t feeling well and I was far enough out of 16th that I didn’t think I would be able to get there. I wouldn’t be this negative on any other pattern, but this pattern is high scoring and I figured that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. I talked to Schlem on Saturday night and he said something about using a higher flaring ball to burn up and bleed some more energy off, so I started with a Trifecta. As a matter of fact I only threw that ball during practice. I figured it was all of nothing that morning. The lanes seemed a little tighter to the right, which played into my hands a little bit. I went ring 10, 9-bagger, ring 10 for 279. In Game 2 brought a ring 10, 10-bagger, ring 10 for 289. Not bad for being ready to drive home ! I guess I spent so much time watching Tiger at the British Open, I didn’t have time to worry about what I was doing. I had 236 in Game 3, 241 in Game 4 and I finished with 246 in Game 5. I didn’t move during the entire block and almost every pair played the same. I jumped from 26th to 3rd, and was only 2 pins out of the lead. I finished the block with +291 for the 5 games compared to +127 yesterday for 8 games. Sometimes this sport is just too tough to figure out ! Anyway, I drew Tom Hess for my round of 16 match. I noticed right away that the pair we drew wasn’t going to be a good match for me. The ball was hooking at my toe and I just kept trying to pipe the Trifecta through it. Tommy is so freaking strong that he just overpowered the pattern and dominated Game 1 258-192. A blower 7-10 in the ninth cost me Game 2, even though I still had a chance to double in the 10th to win ( strike, 4 pin ). Game 2 was a 207-201 loser and now I was down 0-2. I went to my Thunderstruck for Game 3, but it was too little too late. Tommy won Game 3 279-247 to take the match.

Talk about your roller coaster rides ! Oh well, it was nice to actually make match play again. Now it was time to head home and get back to work on my regional coming up next weekend. Still a lot left to do and not much time left.

Special thanks go out to the entire staff at the Thunderbowl including our hosts Steve Sempeck, Richie Abboud, Doug Laird, Ted Baer, and Dick & Brenda Stevens. They are wonderful hosts and I always look forward to coming to Council Bluffs. Next weeks report will come from “home”. Next weekend is a weekend that will be very trying, but for a lot of reasons. More on that next week. Until then, bowl up a Storm !