congrats go out to steve jaros on winning the pba midwest regional tournament this weekend in council bluffs, iowa. i had the pleasure of crossing with him during Saturday's qualifying and he's about the nicest guy you'll ever run into.
this tournament was contested on 3 year old( ? ) amf hpl 9000 synthetic lanes and the 35' cheetah pattern. there was plenty of hook on the 1-2 board about 36-38' down the lane. i had a great look during shadow balls with my 4,000 grit abralon finished brunswick fury. i was throwing the ball straight down the 3 board with medium speed and appx. 20 degrees of axis rotation------pretty much and end-over-end roll. the problem was that i wasn't real sharp physically during shadow balls or game 1. i was in the 190's during the first game and several ringing 10's kept from having a better game.
games 2 through 7 were an attempt to find a way to carry------when i made a good shot. most games were in the low 200's and the lack of carry really hurt me. i'll bet i left an average of three ringing 10's per game. i also had several solid 7's, 8's, and 9's. i had switched to a brunswick scorchin' inferno( 1,000 abralon + polish ) at about game 5 to try and improve my angle to the pocket to try and increase my carry. i was in the 210's in game 7 when i missed my only spare on the day-----i flagged a 10 pin. i was really pleased with my spare shooting. i actually had a higher score than steve jaros in game 7 as he struggled with several bad breaks( 7-10 & 4-9 splits ). we moved to lanes 1&2 for our final game. although i was tired and sore by this point i was throwing the ball much better. steve jaros had the last 5 to finish with 256. i had the chance to finish with the last 7 to tie him and was able to get all 3 in the 10th frame to finish it off for a 256, my high game for the day. steve seemed genuinely happy for me and laughed out loud when i told him, "that i could never beat him !"
thanks to the owners and staff at thunderbowl for putting on a great tournament. i'd also like to thank my wife and sister and her family for coming to watch me. it meant a lot having them there. my wife got to meet ballreviews own jeff carter but my sister and her family weren't able to meet him later which is unfortunate. i got to meet and talk to pba and usbc hall of famer dave soutar who was there for the senior tournament. all in all it was a great experience for me and will help me in my future tournaments.
Edited on 7/30/2007 5:58 PM
