Just got back from the nationals.
Got my house to set up national patterns.  Practiced 2 weekends about 20 games.  Had the right equipment, knew where I was going to throw...I was ready.
Figured the line might be a board or two different from my house, so I Spent Team (528) and Doubles (479) trying to find the "Magic" line.
After kicking myself and blowing $200 in bracket money, I gave up.  I just picked a line, and made small adjustments from there, making sure I was executing to the best of my ability.  630 in Singles.  If I had been focusing on execution instead of the Magic line, I probably would have bowled a 1900 instead of 1600.  I had some normal carry issues in singles, but nothing like Team and doubles.
Lanes are a little slicker in Team, but you can probably use the same ball for Team and minors.  Just practice you execution and timing.  Pick a target and go.

bhs,
    You may very well be correct that they bowled alone this year. I knew they had a companion team last year, and maybe Amanda was the extra doubles bowler, since she was having health issues. If they did do this with only 5 people, then it is even more impressive then the team breaking the record.

bhs,
    Well I don't know any of them personally, but before her health issues, Amanda was a great bowler....she may have been in classified as her average was low enough as she returned to bowling after surgery (these things I read on the bowl.com article as Erik talked about it the emotions of Amanda retiring from bowling). And that was my point earlier, usually it is better to have a companion team of good competitive bowlers, but it might be better to sacrifice some skill to get bowlers who can match up with your gameplan. AS long as the other team was following the plan, it would allow the "main" team to carve the lanes to their liking and allow them to score well. In either case, it was great bowling. Many teams come in with plans, but can't put together the kind of set that these guys did.

Dmonroe,
    I think this is great conversation. You posted what you saw and others have shown that you were spot on with your observations, and from there we have discussions on the actual laneplay and what is needed to improve one's scores, which is the premise of your original post, to impart knowledge from your first hand experience to help others do better. I am no contender for an Eagle. I do hold onto the dream that one day everything will come together for either me, me and partner, or my team and I might have a chance to win an Eagle. I was close to averaging 200 at Nationals for my 12 years there, until the last 2 years where I bowled some of the worst scores of my life. I attribute some of it to poor execution on my part, but some was due to our team not working together. I had 4-5 guys playing inside of me last year, as I tried to play the line Bill Hall suggested was the way to play the lanes. I told everyone that strategy, but some didn't like the look they had there and decided to move in to a more "comfortable" playing area. I had about 4-5 good frames until the oil pushed into my line and my scores started to go down. When I tried to move inside that oil, I hit the dry they had created and go overhook. And if I tried to move deeper, I didn't have the right equipment or surfaces to get a constent corner. I saw first hand what happens when teams do not work together, and I caught the brunt of it with a 450ish team set. Was it all others, no. Some was poor execution on my part as I said, but if we would have worked together, none of us would have had to have been as accurate as we would have created area. I mention this only to show that no matter what skill level you are at, or what age....working together is important for the group as a whole to allow you to bowl as good as you can. For some that is Eagles, for some that is top 100, for others that is just cashing.