A GOOD PRACTICE

Sharon and I practiced at Diablo Lanes last night. Kris joined us after a couple of games. It was quiet with the Showcase League done until the next fall season. The only league operating was a scratch trios league that has only about eight teams.

Sometimes we feel like giving up.
We can't allow ourselves to do it.

Many times I've said that even when one isn't bowling well, practice can do a lot of good. There's almost always something that can be learned, even on a night when nothing seems to be working. Last night was a classic example of this.

In our first few games, Sharon was struggling and growing very frustrated. Her ball wasn't hooking and she was leaving washouts and other difficult spares. Near the end of her third game, she realized she wasn't bending her knees enough, causing her to bowl too upright. She finished that game with a couple of strikes and a spare. She decided to stick around and see if she could build on what she learned at the end of that game. She focused on staying low and her shots hooked sharply and consistently. When she didn't strike, she converted nearly all of her spares. After feeling disappointed and frustrated through the first few games, she finished with scores of 212 and 196. She was all smiles at that point.

It was a good night overall. All three of us hit some rough patches early but made some adjustments and finished the night with some very strong games.

MEMORIAL DAY - NO LEAGUE BOWLING TONIGHT

There was a miscommunication with regard to the Sport Challenge Doubles 23 league schedule. Our stat sheets had us scheduled to bowl tonight. When we asked last week if we were bowling tonight, we were told, "Yes." It turns out our league rules list the Memorial Day holiday as a night we don't bowl so we're obligated to follow that.

A little over half of our league showed up to bowl tonight, unaware that we had the night off. Diablo Valley Bowl had lanes 1-16 surfaced with Paris 47' for us and we were ready to bowl. To their credit, Diablo Valley Bowl let us practice on the Paris 47' lanes for free. Olivia and I took them up on the offer and bowled five games.

PRACTICE ON PARIS 47'

Sharon, Olivia, and I practiced on Paris 47' at Diablo Lanes tonight. Sharon did pretty well for her first time bowling on this condition. She scored in the 160s which isn't bad at all considering her 162 average translates to 153 in sport bowling. It's a lot better than I did my first time.

Olivia arrived after Sharon and I had bowled three games. She made some good shots but had some trouble with her back that may have caused her to swing her shots wide of her target. On Paris 47', a ball rolled outside stays outside. With the oil extending 47' down the 60' lane, it won't ever get the traction to pull back to the pocket.  I had some struggles with that myself.

I scored in the 160s a few times and had a stinker in the 140s before I finished with a 223 game. I hope I have a few more of those for tomorrow night.

SPORT CHALLENGE DOUBLES 23 - WEEK 1 & 2 RESULTS

Olivia and I are bowling in a sport league at Diablo Valley Bowl on Monday nights. Our league, Sport Condition Doubles 23, bowls four games per night. The handicap is 80% of 220. We have a two game set against one team, then another two game set against another team. We operate on a ten-point scoring system per set so there is the potential for twenty points each night for the four games. If I grasped the rules sheet correctly, the team earns two points per game won and two points for total pinfall. There are also points for head-to-head individual matchups. Olivia bowls first and if she outscores the first bowler on the other team, we earn a point for each game. The same goes for me as the second bowler. I have to outscore the second bowler on the other team to earn a point.

Membership in a sport league sanctioned by the USBC (as ours is) requires a sport league membership which costs $35.00. Since we already possess the regular $20.00 USBC memberships, it cost us only $15.00 to upgrade. Our regular league averages don't apply in sport bowling. There is an average conversion chart for bowlers with a book average who don't possess a sport bowling average. My 183 book average translates to a 168 sport bowling average. Olivia's 136 average translates to a 132 sport bowling average.

The competition is going to be tough. We'll be bowling against Ray and Gaylah Spackman, Ron Watson (Ray's assistant at the pro shop), Treico Holland (whose name appears all over local tournament leader boards), Garrett Richardson (the pro at Pinole), Sasha Gray (the talented young lefty who works at DVB), and several bowlers from the Al Louie Showcase League.

As you can see from the stats below, Olivia is averaging 148.5 after two weeks. That's much higher than her 136 average on THS. She's making it look easy. I averaged only 152.5 the first week, though I bumped it up to 161.8 in the second. So far, it's been anything but easy for me. I felt like I was doing really well Monday night but I didn't break 200 in any of the four games. As a team, we went 8-12 the first week but bounced back to score 13-7 the second week. Our record is 21-19 after two weeks. Not bad for a couple of first-timers. (Click on the Sport Doubles 23 tab above to see our league stat sheets.)

WEEK 1   01  02 SET 1   03  04 SET 2 SERIES NGMS   AVG SGMS TPINS  SAVG  SET 1
Olivia  165 108   273  186 147   333    606    4 151.5    4   606 151.5  1W-9L
Mark    146 152   298  150 162   312    610    4 152.5    4   610 152.5  SET 2
Total   311 260   571  336 309   645   1216    8 152.0    8  1216 152.0  7W-3L
                                                                         TOTAL
                                                                        8W-12L

WEEK 2   01  02 SET 1   03  04 SET 2 SERIES NGMS   AVG SGMS TPINS  SAVG  SET 1
Olivia  145 133   278  147 157   304    582    4 145.5    8  1188 148.5  7W-3L
Mark    171 170   341  192 151   343    684    4 171.0    8  1294 161.8  SET 2
Total   316 303   619  339 308   647   1266    8 158.3   16  2482 155.1  6W-4L
                                                                         TOTAL
                                                                        13W-7L
                                                                        SEASON
                                                                       21W-19L

SPORT BOWLING

As the PC Bricks aren't fielding a softball team this summer, I'm free to bowl in a summer league this year. The Blockheads chose not to bowl in the Over The Wall summer league so Olivia and I decided to join the Sport Challenge Doubles league on Monday nights. Sharon will sub when one of us can't make it. The Coach may also get a piece of the action when a sub is needed.

What is a sport bowling? A good explanation can found in this article on lane conditions found at bowlingball.com. The condition we bowl on for our regular league is called the house shot or THS for short. It's designed to make it easy for novice and intermediate bowlers to hit the pocket and get high scores.

We're used to bowling on on patterns such as the Block and
Christmas Tree which provide a large margin of error.

With THS, the lane has a heavy amount of oil in the center. Moving from the center to the gutters, the amount of oil dispensed on the lane decreases gradually. There is very little oil on the ten boards closest to the gutters. This gives the bowler a substantial margin of error. If your target is the second arrow (10th board), you can often miss by a few boards to the left or right and have your ball still hit the pocket. When you shoot wide to the right, the lack of oil at the outside edge allows your ball to gain traction early and still hook toward the pocket. If you tug your shot to the left of the target, the long, heavy oil in the center of the lane allows your ball to keep skidding instead of hooking. Thus, you might get a Brooklyn strike or at least catch the 2 pin when you might expect the shot to flair out way to the left.

With sport shot, you don’t have conditions that will minimize your errors. The oil is typically heavy all the way across the lane or heavy at the edges and light in the center. If you swing your shot too far to the right, it’s going to meet heavy oil and stay out there. If you tug your shot toward the middle of the lane, it may hook early and sail toward the 7 pin. Unlike THS, sport shot is very unforgiving. It forces you to focus on accuracy because if you miss your target, there’s a good chance you’ll be stuck with a washout or split. It's much harder to strike so it's vitally important that you convert your spares.

For help in understanding the various oil pattern graphs found on the internet, this site may be of some help.

CBT DOUBLES TOURNAMENT RESULTS

I finally received the results from the Cal Bowlers Tour tournament we bowled in earlier this month. Olivia and I almost finished in the money but we were twenty pins short at 1395 (720 for Olivia and 675 for me). I thought we were higher but I found I made a math error when figuring my handicap. We were so close!

Cal Bowlers Tour is hosting another doubles tournament at Diablo Valley Bowl on the weekend of June 9th-10th. It's not on the CBT website yet but the flier is on the counter at Diablo Valley Bowl. You can find it on our tournaments page also.

 1 Barcelona, JoJo / Syo, Moeses         1,530 $1,000.00 Lemoore
 2 Wells, Darryl L / Syo, Moeses         1,511 $  600.00 Oakland
 3 Wixson, Mark / Rivera, Fred           1,500 $  400.00 Castro Valley
 4 Barcelona, Marilyn / Barcelona, JoJo  1,493 $  300.00 Lemoore
 5 Vergara, Mike / Rivera, Fred          1,491 $  200.00 Newark
 6 Wells, Darryl / Diggs, Fernando       1,479 $  160.00 Oakland
 7 Stern, Jerry / Cervelli, Tony         1,463 $  132.00 Concord
 7 Barcelona, Marilyn / Syo, Moeses      1,463 $  132.00 Lemoore
 9 Pridgeon, Keith / Wells, Darryl       1,461 $  100.00 Antioch
 9 Amantite, Gary / Bobo, Wiley          1,461 $  100.00 El Sobrante
11 Wells, Darryl / Murray, Chris         1,460 $   90.00 San Jose
12 Murray, Chris / Barcelona, JoJo       1,454 $   86.00 San Jose
13 Basa, Cezar / Rivera, Fred            1,447 $   80.00 Castro Valley
14 Barcelona, JoJo / Miller, Rick        1,445 $   76.00 Lemoore
15 Goode, Roslyn / Stobbe, John          1,442 $   72.00 Pittsburg
16 Kuykendall, Stephen / Rivera, Fred    1,440 $   68.00 Oakland
17 Syo, Moeses / Hoang, Tinh             1,435 $   66.00 Lathrop
18 Barcelona, JoJo / Kuykendall, Stephen 1,431 $   64.00 Lemoore
18 Miller, Rick / Bella, Al              1,431 $   64.00 Fairfield
20 Lang, Daniel / Terra, Quinton         1,428 $   60.00 San Jose
21 Woodruff, Tracy / DiMaggio, Steve     1,426 $   56.00 Antioch
22 Kuchta, Matt / Lovick, Mark           1,425 $   54.00 Martinez
23 Murray, Chris / Miller, Rick          1,424 $   53.00 San Jose
23 Relucio, Ruby / Barcelona, JoJo       1,424 $   53.00 Lemoore
25 Kuykendall, Stephen / Syo, Moeses     1,415 $   50.00 Lathrop

DOUBLES TOURNAMENT

Who is free to bowl Sunday? There's a doubles tournament at Clayton Valley Bowl.

OVER THE WALL II - WEEK 16 RESULTS

Our 4-0 defeat last week put us just short of a shot at reclaiming first place. That didn't dampen our competitive spirit and we took 3 of 4 from One Time to finish in second place. The Coach started the night with five consective strikes and scored his high series for the season. Sharon was overjoyed as she converted every 6 and 10 pin spare opportunity she had. Sadly, the season is ending just as we're hitting our stride. All we have left now is the sweeper next week. I say it's time for The Blockheads to make a big money grab!


WEEK 16  01  02  03 TOTAL AVG
Sharon  164 170 137   471 157
Olivia  140 143 135   418 139
Mark    169 151 220   540 180
Gary    208 171 151   530 177
TEAM    681 635 643  1959 163

SEASON   HG   HS AVG
Sharon  208  547 162
Olivia  181  469 137
Mark    243  607 183
Gary    220  530 155
TEAM    771 2056 160