I just finished the 8:30 team event tonight and wanted to give my review (this is based on my rev rate):
We did the one hour practice session upstairs. Not sure what the deal was; but the only out of bounds we saw is if you got the ball out to 1-2-3. We still had good ball reaction off 4-5 with the right amount of rev rate and ball/surface choice. I took my Rock On at 1000 abralon and played 8 out to 3-4 and still went in the nose. After about 15 minutes, I was able to take my Ebonite Tornado at 1000 plus Factory Finish and play 15 out to 8 and had a pretty good look at the pocket. After about 30 minutes with 9 other guys with various rev rates, a few of were able to take something fairly skid flip and open up. I took a AMB Solid at 4000 abralon and play around 20-22 at the arrows out to anywhere between 6-10 breakpoint and strike at will. This was the practice session. Now onto the actual Team Event.
We had wayyy more friction on the backend than what we saw on the practice lanes. Bowled on 37-38. I took my Rock On at 1000 and tried to play up 5-6-7 and I hit the 2-4 in the face; completely whiffed the head pin left. Our strategy soon changed from everyone playing right to breaking it down in shadow then go to what was comfortable; play to our strengths. I started with my Tornado. When I threw it good, I could play 15 out to 8 and had a good look. However, I only threw it good twice in the first 6 frames (could not get my middle finger out of the ball and kept pulling it). I switched to my Warlock DC Tour (Pinky) and went into 20 at arrows out to 8-9-10 breakpoint and had a really good look in there. Struck out in the 9th and tenth for 181 first game. Second game, started front 3, hook early split, spare, hook early split, and then finished strong for 221. Final game, I migrated further into about 23 at the arrows and play 10-12 breakpoint. I went dutch 200 until the tenth and flushed all 3 to shoot 220 clean). I shot 622 with a rough first 6 frames. I feel like if I had not fought the release and changed to my Warlock sooner, I may have had a shot at a high 600 set.
My team overall shot 3021 going 916, 1020, 1085. I believe the reason we shot the lower first game (besides my release issues) was because what we saw in the practice session did not match what we saw downstairs. There was a noticable temperature change as it was much cooler downstairs than upstairs. We seemed to have alot more friction in the team event from the start so we quickly had to rethink what we were doing. I believe we kept trying to fight what wasnt there for the first half of game 1. Once we decided to play to our strengths (couple played firm up 8-10 and a couple went deeper), we actually bowled alot better. For us the shot around 6-7-8 broke down pretty quickly. Once we moved in, it was just a matter of getting the ball to our spots. We could miss a pinch out. Just could not miss a pinch in.
Have Singles/Doubles tomorrow at 5:30. Will post more tomorrow night once we are done and I get back to the hotel.
