Just in case anyone cares, here's one league hack's review of the lanes this year.
Team: Plenty of oil up front, plenty of friction in back. I threw my Virtual Gravity with 5 inch pin down with fresh 2000 surface. Played straight up 7 and had a good look. Struggled a bit with the glare from the scoreboard the first half game, got comfortable towards the end of game 1, throwing a 4 bagger after an early open for 215. Had a bit of carry down, so I shaded my feet a little bit right, keeping my target at 7 for game 2 – concentrating on not grabbing it at the bottom. I proceeded to throw the 10 best shots of my life and started with the front 10. Got up for the 11th shot, and in my 3rd step, a lane on the pair to my left gets turned off to return a ball or something. I was able to stop my approach, but lost my comfort level and couldn’t regroup throwing an 8 count and getting 1 for 287. Game 3 was a bundle of nerves and being stubborn. I should have moved in with a ball that got down the lane further, but just couldn’t get myself to change balls after throwing a 280 game. Finally switched to a Hy-Road after a split in the 8th, but couldn’t catch a double and shot 182 with 1 open for 684. Team had 2989.
Doubles: Came in early to find that for the 3rd consecutive year we had 4 classified teams throwing plastic all over our doubles and singles lanes. Can’t tell you how excited that made us feel. Anyhow – bad ball choices and bad angles led to a 163 start in doubles. I decided to throw a Hy-Road which doesn’t react like anything else in my bag and move in to 20 at the arrows trying to get it right of the last tracer at the break point. Turned out to be the right choice as I went 233 and 259 to salvage 655. Partner had a clean 638 which gave us a respectable 1293.
Singles: Moved a couple right after watching our cross guys struggle to get it to hook – whoops – ball sparked at the arrows and went dead left. Another big step left, grind out 199-223 to start singles, just kept chasing it left. Should have just kept doing that, but I’m not very comfortable left of 25 so I tried balling down and staying around 20 in game 3. Strike, split, strike, split, double, split to finish singles with a hugely disappointing 158 and 1919 all events. My highest all events ever, but somehow disappointing as I thought with my look and the way I was throwing the ball that I had a chance to do something really really special.
Some other highlights - watching Rob Bailey's team take over the lead, seeing Shannon Pluhowsky take over the all events. WOW does she throw it well.
Good luck to all who are going - happy to answer any questions.
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"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."
- Henny Youngman
