Monday Morning Morphine

Another weekend passed, the TGIF league not in the books, and another Monday morning that feels short on coffee...

As I say hello to Monday, I wish the I could just get an I.V. of coffee. It's cold, my back hurts, and I just cannot wake up! At any rate, Monday is here and I need my 'morphine', so here we go.

So TGIF didn't happen this week due to a scheduled break, so at the last minute, I floundered on entering a local tournament. I had myself completely talked out of it since I didn't want to focus on the tourney and then turn around and get on a plane Monday (today) for meetings in New York.  Roll on Saturday morning and I find out that my meetings had been canceled. Going through my list of do it or don't do it, I decided not to roll the tournament because my mind just wasn't prepared for it. With my mental game being a bit shaky right now, the last thing I wanted to do to myself was spend a few hundred on a tournament that I didn't have a chance to money in. And it's not even really about the money, it's about the fact that I would look back on a poor showing and just become increasingly pissed off at myself. Next time... and I will be ready.

This week PBA League action featured the Silver Lake Atom Splitters and the Dallas Strikers dueling it out for a slot into the semifinal round. Chris Barnes for the Atom Splitters took on Norm Duke of the Strikes in the head to head match worth one point. Early on in the match, Duke just could not generate enough pin action to trip out the 10 and quickly fell behind Barnes who could only strike. Duke, the only player/manager of any PBA League team, quickly benched himself for the 14lb rolling Rhino Page, who is recovering from wrist surgery. The move wasn't to try to win the match, but to get an understanding how that 14lb ball and his repaired wrist would carry on the deck. What turned into a game where Page was pacing Barnes for a possible 300, it was not to be. Barnes went high in the 10th and left the nasty 4-6-7 split for a decisive 265-208 win.

In the second match, it was a fight for survival. Neither team could take over and just run away. The Atom Splitter's pair of Barnes and Bryon Smith and the team of Duke and Mike Machuga of the Strikes showed the viewers why spares and high pin count matter so much in competition. Trading punches of spares, sprinkled with a rare strike or two, it came down to the 10th frames with Smith needing to 9 count to tie or a strike to win. The ball off his hand looked a bit soft and proved to be just that as it hit the pocket leaving an 8 count for the one pin loss, 195-194.

With the points tied up 1-1, the triples match became the momentum match to swing into the finals which would be critical in taking the day. The Atom Splitters sent up a power house trio made up of Dom Barrett, Wes Malott and Tommy Jones, with the Strikers represented by the technicians of the game, Rhino Page, Amleto Monacelli, and Dave Wodka. Today was a day where power won out, strike after strike from the Atom Splitters prevented the Strikers from every really being in the match with a commanding 213-184 win.

In the final match, the Dallas Strikers had to win the Bakers game to snatch the win away from the Atom Splitters. Using the full roster of Duke, Machuga, Monacelli, Wodka, and Page against Barnes, Smith, Barrett, Malott, and Jones, both teams knew what was on the line. Like a slow rolling ball, the Strikers took up until the 7th frame to really get rolling full speed, which in a single game is a tough situation to recover from. However, it looked like the bowling gods were looking down and flashed the pins with a messy 2-8-10 split left by Jones in the 10th frame, cracking the door open just enough for a chance to pass the win over to the Strikers. Page and his 14lb ball stepped into the 10th frame needing to sheet out in order to pull out a one pin win, but today was not to be his day. On his first shot, the southpaw left a stone 7 pin giving the match and the passage to the semifinals to the Silver Lake Atom Splitters. 205-185.

Next up is the final elimination match up show casing the Philadelphia Hitmen lead by Bill O'Neill versus the Pittsburgh Jack Rabbits captained by Finalnd's golden bowling boy, Osku Palmeraa on March 23rd. It's going to be a good one!

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!

Monday Morning Morphine

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

Let me start by saying I have been under the weather now for about a week. Feeling out of sorts is never conducive to great bowling and or even wanting to do anything during the day. That being said, my TGIF league was about as entertaining as a power drill to the forehead. Even not feeling well, I was absolutely solid at the line. My execution goal was to keep my head level during all phases of the shot, more importantly at the point of release at the line. That mission goal was achieved. Matter of fact, I only missed the pocket once all night. Oh and it was bad. I was rewarded with a power washout which resulted in an open. The other problem I suffered from was no carry. This has been a theme of mine for years. Ever since I broke my wrist I have been unable to get a good strong rev rate on my shot and am forced to find power and carry in other places, namely accuracy. So a night filled with sub par strike counts and lots of spares yielded me a very disappointing and weak 587. There were quite a few mental errors on single pin spares that can only be explained as 'reset and focus you dumb ass' syndrome. Lets be honest though, I would have rather been bundled up with a bowl of soup. However, as the old saying goes... I would rather have a bad day bowling than no bowling at all. So I sucked it up and rolled.

This weekend also marked the start of the 2014 PBA League Season. The  L.A. X, loaded with the power of Jason Belmonte and lefty technician Parker Bohn III defeated the BROOKLYN STyLES, 4 points to 2. Even with the STyLES anchored with the venerable Walter Ray Jr and Sean Rash, they couldn't pull off the opening match win. The format of this single elimination league is a single Head to Head match, Alternate Ball Doubles, Baker Trio, each worth one point and a Five-Man Baker Team earning three points. In the singles match, we had a rematch of the Super Clash with Belmonte taking on Rash. This match would not provide different results. Rash left an early 4-6-7 split, failed to convert, and Belmo never looked back rolling a convincing 255-223 win. In the Alternate Ball Doubles game, Jason Sterner and Walter Ray Williams Jr. evened up the points score with a very close 238-234 win against Mika Koivuniemi and Parker Bohn III. With an open in the second frame for team X, this game came down to that miss. Once again proving that spares win games. The third game was a Bakers Trio match up where three players bowled alternate frames. Rash, Tom Smallwood and Williams represented the STyLES while the X's were armed with Belmo, E.J. Tackett and Andres Gomez. The STyLES came firing out of the gates and never looked back opening the game with the front 7, crusing to a 247-218 win taking a 2-1 lead. In an all or nothing final game to take the match, it all came down to the Five-Man Baker to earn three points. With all five team bowlers stepping on, the L.A. X team was made up of Mika Koivuniemi, E.J. Tackett, Andres Gomez. Jason Belmonte, and Parker Bohn III and the BROOKLYN STyLES represented by Jason Sterner, Tom Smallwood, Michael Haugen Jr., Walter Ray Williams Jr., and Sean Rash, it was not a match to miss. Coming down to the 9th frame, Belmo with his amazing power, struck setting up the foundation frame for Bohn. Knowing that it now comes down to execution in the 10th, Bohn delivered. With a solid 237-215 win, the L.A. X had taken the day. Their next opponent will be the winner of the much anticipated New York City Kingpins and the Motown Muscle.