I made the last second decision to go bowl the non-champions PBA regional in Houston this weekend. I decided to drill a Gauntlet and a Maverick Solid before going. We bowled on Chameleon on Brunswick Pro-Anvil surface. I didn't get to go to the practice session. I came in expecting to need to play pretty straight.
I started with the Maverick Solid game 1 and start off 9/XXXXX before going 2-10, 2-8-10, 4-9 and finishing with a 203. game 2. the left lane was similar to the first pair i came off of, but the right lane was burning up fast. ended up using the Paradox trilogy on the right lane and finishing with a 203. Game 3, i dont remember much about, but i shot 200. After 3 games i was in 6th place at +8. Game 4 i hit a rough pair where assymetrical starting giving me problems. i split 4 times and shot 149.
game 5 i switched to the gamebreaker 2 and finally found a really consistent reaction but had carry issues at points and shot 205. Game 6 i fough carry issues again and shot 203. game 7 after leaving back to back to back to back 10 pins i moved a bit and left a 4-9 then a 2-8-10 to shoot 152. After that i decided to pull the gauntlet out and move in a bit. I shot 235 game 8 and won high pot. Totals i got to -48 which isnt very good. But in reality, it was two bad games where i struggled. The cut for the tournament ended up being -21. I think it was my 3rd or 4th regional over a 10 year period. Not to make excuses, but a majority of what i used, i hadnt thrown more than 10-15 shots with as i just drilled up about 6-8 new balls.
All in all i had a good time, i learned a ton about my game and a lot about when to change to different ball types and cores. Also, i got to cross with former rangers pitcher John Burkett. That was a dream come true as a huge baseball fan.
