The Bradley Open in Lexington KY typically has a singles sweeper on Friday night on their league pattern before the main event. This year they opted to do a doubles event instead, and it went over like hotcakes.
I believe they had 85 (give or take) doubles teams participate this year on a "modified" league pattern and the event was very well received. Each team bowled 4 regular games before cutting the field to the top 8 teams for a bracket final.
Matt Sanders (Track staff member and fellow lefty) was nice enough to partner up with me in this one and we always find a way to have fun when bowling together. This tournament was no exception.
Game 1: Never really got comfortable in practice and was in between which ball to use, as nothing really jumped out at me and looked amazing. Ended up going with my Ebonite GameBreaker 2 Phenom Pearl and started 8/9/ x 8/ before rattling off a 4 bagger into the 10th where I left a pretty good 7 pin and ended with 236. Matt had some carry issues throughout the game (darn twister pins) and ended up with 212.
Game 2: Started out slow again with x 8/ 8/ 9/ 8/ before making a small change with my hand to try and get up the back of it a bit more and moved up on the approach and switched to 4 steps to slow my swing down and struck out for 245. Matt got dialed in that game and shot 247 giving us 492 and moving us into the top 10 overall.
Game 3: This game was a struggle for me and lead to a bigger issue later. I started with a strike before missing one a little left that never hooked and 3-7-9'd. I made a little adjustment off of that and threw a 4 bagger before catching one a little too clean for a big 4. I told Matt at that point that I felt like I should switch to my original GB2 but really hadn't thrown it with my new Phenom Pearl so I wasn't 100% sure what it would do in comparison, so I was a little gun shy on making the move. Instead, I moved a little and left a 6 pin, then struck in the 9th before leaving a ringing 7 in the 10th. Because I'm a dope, instead of switching to the GB2 on the fill, I decided to try moving a little with the Phenom Pearl and struck for 200 even. Matt, again, bowled 247 giving us 447 and dropping us out of the top 10.
Game 4: I started this game off with the Phenom Pearl again and went bucket, 3-9, weak 7 out of the gate. Brett Shepherd came down and I got his opinion on if I should change, which he agreed that it was likely the best idea. Because I'm hard headed, however, I tried one more ball with the Pearl and weak 7'd again and decided enough was enough. It was clear that the shiny pearl ball was just stopping down lane because the backs had tightened up so much and I needed something that could get started a little quicker so that I wasn't relying so much on the downlane hook. Frame 5 I changed to the GameBreaker2 and promptly tossed the next 5 strikes... Drats! Heading into the 10th frame I felt that if either of us struck out we had a real chance of making the top 8. Matt made a really good shot but left a 7 pin, so it left it all square on my shoulders. I stepped up and made, what I thought, was my best shot of the game but apparently I either caught it too clean or just missed a move (we did have 5 lefties on our pair) and the ball checked up a little too much for a 6 pin. Matt ended up with 237 and I had 235 to end our qualifying with 472 and +250 for the 8 total games.
We gathered up all of our equipment and patiently waited for the cut score, assuming we were out, but crossing our fingers that we get lucky.
Finally they make the announcement "bowlers we have tabulated all of the scores and the score to make the top 8 was +265. Finishing in 9th place were Matt Sanders and Chris Hester."
Ugh.
Obviously there are several spots over the course of 4 games where you can find 15 pins, but I can't help but think "what if I would've changed balls sooner?" Clearly I needed to change but I second guessed myself and kept trying to tinker with hand positions and speed changes to get the ball to square up rather than just making the necessary change.
Frustrating as I feel my stubbornness and lack of preparation cost us the cut, and that's not fair to Matt.
Hopefully he gives me another chance to make up for that mistake. We are bowling the Prop Cup Doubles Event in July, but hopefully we can find an event or two before then to get more practice in together.
Overall we had a good night, got close to the cut with both of us having a "so-so" game, and made a few bucks. I enjoy competing in team and doubles events, so it was a fun evening for me!
Thanks for reading
#TeamEBI #InfuseYourGame
