Las Vegas, Nevada

Short Pattern -  Most people played around the 6/7 some 5 and some a little deeper.

Medium Pattern -  Shot around the 10.  A lot of people play deeper and not getting the ball wide.  Some down 10.  

Format – Top 4 roll match game 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3.  Losers bronze medal. Winners bowl for gold/silver

Singles – Short Pattern  

Stephanie Nation USA qualified first.  Semi final match: Mexico looked the best in practice and won the match easily shooting 265.  Stephanie was behind by 8 pins going into the 8th frame.  Then her opponent left the Greek Church and went wide the next frame.  That was enough to give her the win.  Mexico give Stephanie lots of room to win with an open, spare and 5 more opens.  Stephanie stayed clean though 7 with an open in the 8.  Her opponent struck 8 and could have gone out for 170, but did not strike in the 9 th.  Stephanie needed good count in the 9th and 10th.  Left a 7 pin the 9th and pick it up for a spare then opened in the 10. Her filled the 10th.  Final score 160+ to 130+

Doubles -  Medium Pattern.

Koreas dominated the qualifying.  Finish 1-2.  In the semis they won one match and lost the other.  But it was tough to get by both Korean teams.  So Korea won the gold with the other Korean team taking the bronize.  

Trio -  Short and Medium 3 games each  with the higher qualifying team selection the pattern.  


Semis with USA and Japan.  They blew open the oil pattern and it was a shootout. Both teams played the same area with 15-20 minutes practice before the match.   US wins 740 to 680?  Taipei’s match close.  Taipei did not know the exact status of the score, but they knew it was close.  They just bowled.  Their anchor caught a double in the 10th.  They still did not know if they won until the final score was posted 610 to 605.  Final match: Taipei keep it close in the beginning and slowly pulled away.  When the US got a strike Taipei match it with a strike or a double.  They won going away 660-610?.  Taipei has 2 spinners and one hook bowler. The pattern never opened up/

Team -  Short and Medium 3 games each with the higher qualifying team selection the pattern.  

Korea and USA blew away their opponents on the short oil with Korea shooting 3400+ and US 3300+.  They maintained their positions in the medium pattern.  The fight was for the 3re and 4th positions.  Singapore was nowhere in sight after the short pattern.  They made a massive move in the medium pattern to take 3rd.  Their second game was 1150 with only one open, that occurred in the 8th frame.    Malaysia was in 5th? and fought their way up to 4th with one game to go.  The coach and manager were leading the cheers encouraging the team.  They were ahead of  5th place Sweden by 91 pins.  With the lead, the coach and manager felt save.  However, Sweden started good and shot a big game.  Malaysia did not see them coming until the 7 th fame and then it was too late.  Sweden took 4th.  Sweden was also not near the top, but made a move in the medium pattern.  

In the semis, Korea took on Sweden of the short pattern.  Korea open several frames early and Sweden keep it clean with a double or two.  However Korea started striking and slowly pull away and won by about 40 pins.  Korean bowlers were straighter shooters and loved the down and in shot.

USA chose the medium oil pattern against Singapore.  Who made that mistake???.  US shot a ton on the short and Singapore shot a ton on the medium.  Most of the Singaporean bowlers turn the ball.  As a result, Singapore was able to keep it close to the US.  US was ahead about 40 pins after 8 frames.  However Singapore could not load up the 9th frame to make a run to win in the 10th.  The match was closer that the 1000+ - 935 score.  US had a bunch of meaningless strikes in the 10 to run up the score.  

Final match was on the short pattern.  With 25 minutes of practice before the match, they blew a hole in the patter.  Korean started striking and kept striking.  It was over by the 9th frame.  .70 pins ahead with the strikes/doubles in the 9th.  They stretched the lead in the 10th winning 1170 to 1070.


(This was written from memory. So give me a little room if the numbers are not 100 %)

Edited on 8/2/2009 1:54 PM