Well, I would have hoped for a better end to the year, but was never quite able to pull things together last night.  Much of my typical inconsistency, missing a few easy spares, and not reproducing my shots well enough.

The lanes were absolutely flying, and I had moved four boards from my normal line by the 3rd frame. If I kept the speed up I was pretty good, but it was an effort getting it out, keeping speed and getting a good roll.

So in the end I go 178-193-198---569.  Not exactly what I wanted, in fact I missed averaging 202 for the year, by a measly 3 pins total.  I'm going to round up in my own mind, but knowing I'm stuck with a 201 book average next year annoys me.

It was a good year for me, a career year so far, and I'll recap the highlights next blog, but it really should have been way better too.  Well, forward steps I guess right?

A few weeks off until PBAx, and hopefully will learn a few things to carry me into next winter league.

After leading the league most of the season, but being tailed by a real solid team, we were finally able to seal the deal with one week to go, winning the Bill Tarsio Memorial League championship last night. Kudos to my teammates who bowled really well all season long.  We all topped our book averages...some of us significantly....so it was a great year all around.

After returning from the PBA Regional last week, it was refreshing to return to a forgiving house shot.  Oops, did I say forgiving?  I guess it's one thing to hit the pocket on a missed-mark, and another to actually carry!  My first two games were extremely frustrating....164 and 171. I really didn't throw the ball poorly at all, but had a nice case of 10-pin-itis. My spare shooting was a little off, so the combination resulted in two poor games.

Last game, out of nowhere, 290! I started to throw the ball a little harder, a more signifcant pushaway and drop, and that seemed to do the trick. Left a 6-10 to start the game, and eight of the 11 ensuing strikes were flush.  I did get at least 2 or 3 breaks where I put the ball into the head pin and the train wreck somehow went down. Since I got very few breaks in the first two games, and we had clinched the league, I was more than happy to take the luck I got here, and my first 11-in-a-row award to boot! (And the pot) :-)

One week left and hoping I can put three solid games together and sneak up to 203, and then it's on to PBA Experience this summer.

I participated in my first PBA Regional tournament today in Rome, NY.  I signed up for it many weeks ago, when I was bowling pretty well, despite not having one game of PBA Experience under my belt.  A bit naive? Probably. I knew going in that not bowling well recently, and not having real world PBA shot experience, would be a bit scary. But it's something I've always wanted to do, and I want to improve, so I dove into the deep end!

I bowled the practice round a full two hours Friday afternoon, and was largely lost.  It was the Shark pattern, and playing the inside doesn't suit my game well.  I'm not a high-rev player, and being a down-and-in league hacker from the outside line seems to be pretty much the opposite of what this shot demands. I tried and tried to work an inside line, but I couldn't get it back to the head pin. Maybe it's me, or my equipment, probably me, but I thought maybe I could play the inside the third-arrow and try and stuff a few.

I pretty quickly abandoned that during practice this morning, and decided to try to stay closer to my strength (for what it's worth) just to get a line to the pocket and a shot I felt I could reproduce.  It wasn't pretty, basically standing 13 and pulling the ball a bit through 10 trying to catch some oil and a slight hook, with some power.

Well....accuracy is SUCH a big deal. If you haven't bowled this shot before, let me just tell you, if you miss by a hair, you will not strike. The outside is like an ice skating rink. Drop it short, say hello to the 1-2-4. I think I left about 10 of them.  Bright side:  I made 10 of them. I left a ton of left-side spares, but with so much oil, it was easy for me to move right, shoot straight over that same mark, and convert a majority of the time.

I don't think I struck more than a dozen-to-15 times, but for the most part my spare shooting was pretty solid.  I missed 4 or 5 'shouldas' over 8 games, but considering I literally must have had at least 60 spare opportunities, and more than a few multiple pin shots, I'm pretty proud of what I did on 2nd-balls.   For some reason I couldn't do it on ball one. I was pleased that despite a number of bad first shots, I only left three or four unmakable splits. I was better off with the 1-2-4's even if that meant I was much further from being right.

Anyway, I went: 162-187-188-167-172-169-161-151: 1357 over 8 games for 169.6 average.

Definitely ran out of gas at the end!  Finished 91st out of 96th LOL.

I always knew that the guys on tour are amazing, and after watching the caliber of players who are just competing for a spot to join them, I have even more respect for the ability and talent that's out there.

I learned a lot today, had some fun challenging myself, and am looking forward to using the PBA Experience summer league to see if I can round my game into form. I think I'm definitely capable of putting on a better show next year, and hope to do this again.

This eight-game grind is about consistency and accuracy and skill, and hopefully by this time next year I'll have a little bit more of all of them.

Good luck to all you guys out there trying to make it to the big time. I tip my hat to you!

All I'll say is that it's a good thing my teammates are picking up my slack. Two weeks left and we need to win one game out of six to clinch the league, facing 2nd place team next week.

I'm doing very little, if anything, to help lately. Last night I went in with a gameplan, did some different things adjustment wise, made more use of a second ball, and the end result was a hideous 525.

I carried very little when I hit the pocket, 10-pins, 4-pins, not many of those slight-miss breaks. This is the karma you get though, when you can't throw a ball consistently, and that was the primary problem.  My timing, release, everything, is just not in synch. I've gone from being pretty consistent each shot weeks ago, to being a bumbling mess.

My average has plummted from 208 to 202, and shooting three 500's in a row is bumming me out. My confidence is shot, which is sad considering this has been amazing year for me up until 6 or 7 weeks ago, and i had been pretty consistent most of the year.

I'm going to have to really simplify everything in my game and start back at square one, and work on some things this summer. Some coaching, more practice, something. I've got more game than this crap I'm tossing out there and I'm just tired of shortchanging myself and wasting the ability I know I have in here somewhere.

If anyone has advice, I'm all ears. I know part of this problem is just not bowling enough and practice is needed. I work a lot so it's tough. Anyway....

I've been terribly inconsistent lately, and it's all coming from my delivery it seems. I can't seem to get a roll where I'm releasing from the same elevation, and the same point off my hand in relation to the foul line.....it's compounding things because I'm not hitting my mark as a result, or not hitting it with the same reaction. When I adjust to the lanes, I'm not adjusting properly, because I'm introducing too many variables to tell what's the lane, and what's me.

I have a tendency to start my approach very upright, but find myself getting down too low, either dipping my shoulder, or coming around the side of the ball, or getting the ball on the lane too soon, or a combination.  I can't seem to find that happy medium consistently, where I'm somewhere between upright, and down down-low.

I feel like if I can get this part of my game straight, the rest will be easier to diagnose and my adjustments will be truer re: the lanes themselves.

Anyone experienced this problem and get through it? If so, what worked for you?

I went 163-222-169 last night, and I'm frustrated big time. The shot's so easy in my house, there's no way I should be putting up numbers like these. I'm my own worst enemy lately.