We had position round last night. We are in the midst of that last crucial "push" to try and move into the top ten in our league. After languishing around the 25th-28th spot all season, we finally started to put consecutive wins together over a four week period.
As of last night we had moved into the 18th spot. Position Round. All season long the lanes have been wide open. You could play multiple lines...the down and in shot was especially wide open. Last night during practice, the first thing I noticed was, normally good pocket shots thrown, were running smack into the head-pin or going Brooklyn!!
Obviously, we had some built-in hook downlane on the fresh shot! I immediately decided to move inside a bit, about 7 boards left of where I'd normally play, and since I don't have high speed, I moved my target about a foot further downlane then normal.
No problems, I start out with a turkey. My teammate who'd been on a roll in previous weeks goes strike, split, 8/, open! And I am befuddled because I assumed he saw the same differences I did in practice. NOPE! He's throwing his ball on the same line he used on the high side of the house last week. (we are on the low side for position round) So I tell him what I see, and the adjustments I made.
Unfortunately, I had two crucial splits in what should have been an honor score game and finish with a 222. He shoots a 149!!
I could not believe that he read those lanes so wrongly, especially since he is a youth bowling coach!!! No quick adjustments, just split after split....and when he wasn't throwing a split, he let the splits affect his spare game. Missed three ten pins!
I never assume a shot is the same. That's what the practice is for.....to tell you what's out there and to read it accordingly and make the adjustments. In a 7 point system, we ended up losing 5 points because two of my teammates did not adjust until the third game!
Clearly, their must be a skill needed to reading lanes and getting proper ball reaction.
