Sport League

I followed up my miserable (but valuable) experience in Alexandria with a decent league set.

We bowled the Scorpion pattern tonight and I brought the following equipment:

Total NV
Scorchin' Inferno
Pin Slasher
Cherry Vibe
Avalanche Slide
Blue Dot

The above are ordered in overall hook. The pin slasher is a lower-pin layout with oil soaked cover and the cherry vibe was lightly scuffed with grey scotch brite. I could have fit a ball in between the two (vapor zone) but I only wanted to bring 6.

I started with the Scorchin' playing 13-10 (foul line to arrows) with a fairly tame release. I didn't hit transition until the end of the game and I managed a 258. My first frame was a 7-pin with a blatant whiff as I hung up in the ball.

The heads started to go on me but with my new release(s) and especially with this inferno, the early roll didn't result in over-hook (I didn't go through the face when I hit transition). Instead I'd either go high-flush and blast 10 in the pit, or I'd trip-6. It was pretty sweet in that I'd see when to make the move and not pay much of a price. Exactly opposite of my weekend tournament :)

247 the second game, and I even carried a through-the-nose strike (okay, so I can go through the face).

By the third game my inferno is starting to look too early and not angular enough, so I'm starting to consider a ball change. I decide to milk it as long as I can with the logic that I'm not paying full price, so I can probably squeeze 220ish out of this reaction. Call it cowardly, but with 4 lefties on our pair and being on a PBA pattern, I'll gladly take a steady deuce vs. risking disaster. I fired an uneventful 227 and as expected, my carry is a bit worse. As I'm moving in, I'm also slightly increasing axis-rotation, which for me is easy since the last 10 years of my bowling has been a mega-rotation release. (NOT rotating at the release is the new tool that I'm working into my new A-game).

Starting game 4 I bust out the Cherry Vibe, make a 6-2 move in, and bust out the hook release. The ball reaction was great and I was inside of the other lefties. I had a nice little strip of carrydown to lean on and a strip of dirt outside the carrydown. I felt like a righty.

I had the worst shot of the night in this game, a total loss of focus giving me a 5 count washout (with the 10 pin instead of the 6 pin, oddly). I made a good pitch at it but left the 7.

I went into the 10th frame with 243 possible, made a great pitch (moved 1-1 to try and stay ahead of the transition) but I didn't move enough! I caught all of it on what I felt was a great shot, and went through the nose for a 2-4-7 which I chopped. 939 for 4 games, which I'm satisfied with--although it's disappointing that I made that terrible shot when my ball reaction was awesome that last game.

Execution was "between ok and good" when I look at the night as a whole. I had about 3 to 4 bad shots on first balls, 1 single pin whiff due to hanging in the ball, and 1 chop. Sounds like a ton of errors for 4 games but I can rationalize it in my head as being a good night =)

On strike shots, I had very few misses in terms of targeting and I did a good job staying ahead of lane changes. I'm happy with my equipment choices. I'm still not sure how early I should have gone to the vibe. Despite the 208 I had the reaction to shoot 250+.