After I threw my first 300 a few weeks ago (with my Morich Awesome Revs), I had been throwing the ball very well, but fighting some unusually tough lane conditions. I had one night where the backends were absolutely flying, but other than that I've fought tight backends and a lot of midlane hook, making it unusually hard to carry. Lots and lots of 10 pins, which I don't normally leave very often. (Everybody on my team has fought the same thing in both of my leagues the past couple weeks) However, Saturday nights I bowl at Executive Strike & Spare in Louisville, KY. That house is notorious for poor carry and lots of 10 pins.
Last night, I was throwing the ball AWFUL in practice -- it came off my hand to the left and stayed left. was aiming to send it out to the 5 board and instead hit the 15 board. This surprised me greatly because I've been rolling the ball so well the past several weeks. I didn't miss my mark by more than 2 boards all night just Tuesday night! For some reason, I just couldn't get comfortable and was grabbing the ball a little early on.
The heads were pretty oily and the backends were already tight, so I took out my Special Agent and started swinging it once I got comfortable and had decent success for a couple frames, but then the lanes started drying FAST. I kept moving left and just kept hitting higher and leaving splits. I switched to my Awesome Revs and didn't do much with it either and shot a 194.
The second game, I stuck with the Awesome Revs and tried different lines. Nothing worked. I fought a bad over/under and the ball was rolling too hard mid-lane, resulting in a couple splits. I finally decided to make a big change in the late frames and switched to my Spit Fire, moved left a couple boards, and picked up my speed. I missed a 7 pin like an idiot late and shot only a 168. That's the worst game by far I've shot since the first week of the season when I was just out to lunch with the wrong equipment in this league.
I finally found something that worked though by just standing left, throwing it hard into the dry, and hitting swisher shots light in the pocket. I wasn't even hitting my mark consistently, but was just getting lucky and hitting near the pocket every frame and striking. (Yep, the shot had gotten walled up!) I started to finally roll the ball better around the 8th frame and threw a couple good flush pocket shots. In the 10th frame, I got up and got aggressive with it and made sure I projected my shot into the dry, it turned hard and hit flush. On the 11th pitch, I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm, and threw it a touch slow and tripped the 4 pin. On the 12th, I again took a deep breath and threw it about the same speed, but had it half a board further left and left a high-flush 10 pin. Ouch!! 299 game for only a 661 series. Oh well -- I still won over $300 in jackpots with that game. Plus I can't complain about shooting good when I was rolling the ball like garbage most of the night.
