Monday Morning Morphine

Another weekend passed, another TGIF league in the books, and another Monday morning that feels short on coffee...

Well boys and girls out there in bowling land, I am here to say that I am officially in a world class slump. I am too ashamed to report what my series was from the TGIF League and I proved once again that beer and bowling in this body do not mix. Nothing against beer and certainly nothing against bowling, but I should not have allowed myself to have too much liquid courage on the lanes. Especially when I had goals I was trying to achieve.

Hyper Cell

On a much brighter note, I did punch up a new ball on Valentine's Day. This is how you know your significant other loves you, when you spend Friday night in the shop drilling new equipment they got you. The Hyper Cell from RotoGrip was my bouquet of flowers and chocolates.  I went with a basic 4x4 pin above ring layout to try to match up with an older Columbia 300 Pure Physics that I had quite a bit of success with. The specs are almost identical when it comes to the RG and Diff and I knew that the cover from RotoGrip would be stronger. I have also been focusing on quite a bit of symmetric gear in my bag simply because overall, they react better for me. Not having anything asymmetric that has been released in the past year, I knew I was in for a surprise... key being, is it a good or bad one. Surprise!!! Boy was I right. This ball jumps off the break point with one of the most deliberate turns I have seen come off my hand in a long time. I was able to play further down the lane and hit harder in the pocket that any of my Storm IQs or DV8 gear. It also gave me a read deeper than I normally like to play. Which is not a bad thing, just something that I need build confidence in doing if the lanes get real torched on me.

In other news over the weekend, the defending champions of the PBA League, the New York City WTT KingPins took on the Motown Muscle. At stake was more than the single elimination match on the day, head coaches Carolyn Dorin-Ballard of the KingPins and her husband Del Ballard of the Muscle had a personal bet riding on the day. In the opening singles game between team captains, Pete Weber and Mike Fagan, Weber survived two big splits in the middle of the game to put the KingPins in an early 1-0 lead with a 232-225 win. Fagan converted the spare of the day, the 3-7-10 split, but it still wasn't enough to overcome the ageless Weber.

In game two, revenge was served. Motown’s Chris Loschetter and Fagan put together a run going strikes on the front eight to run away from John Szczerbinski and Weber, 268-214, to even the match at 1-1. Szczerbinski struggled to find carry, but looked solid in the pocket and at the line. All Weber could do was cover spares and be supportive off the bench.

Game three featured the Baker Trios with a Motown win over the KingPins. Mike Scroggins, Tom Daugherty and Brian Kretzer finished the game with five consecutive strikes to better a late rally by  KingPins Scott Norton, Jake Peters and Stuart Williams in the game. The 247-234 victory over the KingPins vaulted the Muscle to a 2-1 lead.

In the final game of the match, the Five-man Baker was all or nothing, something that you didn't want to miss. The Motown Muscle struggled to get anything consistent going, getting only one strike in the first five frames to fall behind early. A late game 6-7 split by Scroggins in the seventh frame pretty much ended any chance of the Motown Muscle winning the day. Strike after strike by New York’s Williams, Peters and Szczerbinski opened up a 47-pin lead allowing Weber to casually just toss at the pins in the tenth frame for the easy win. With the final game being worth 3 points, the New York City WTT KingPins won the match 4-2.

Next up, Quarterfinal match three, pitting Norm Duke and the Dallas Strikers against Chris Barnes and the Silver Lake Atom Splitters on Sunday, March 2, at 3 p.m. ET. This one will be a fun match to watch!