Summer League Recap - Week 9

New settee areas at Victory Lanes in Scottsboro, AL - photo credit Josh Fralick

What a Difference a Week Makes

We arrived at the center and immediately noticed some visual and practical improvements. The settee area had been expanded, giving bowlers more space to move around. Slowly but surely, management is making positive changes to the facility. Summer isn’t the most ideal time—financially—to implement upgrades, but I’m grateful they’re paying attention and actively working to improve the center.

Our string of equipment delays (and failures) was nonexistent last night. We were assigned to lanes 9 and 10—my favorite pair, located near the center of the house—and everything ran smoothly. No scoring issues. No dropped pins. No long waits for the pinsetters to rack us up. Mechanically, it was a flawless night, and we were one of the first teams to finish rather than the last to leave.

We faced a team ranked 8th in the league standings—middle of the pack—but they had a couple of solid bowlers, including one with a single-digit handicap. Speaking of handicap, we entered the match with a 104-pin advantage, which made things interesting. We were never completely out of it, but we came up short in games one and two.

Game one was a 51-pin loss; game two, just 25 pins. But game three was a different story. Everything clicked, and we outscored them by 109 pins. That gave us a split for the night. By winning game three and collecting the most total pins overall, we secured 3 points, despite dropping 4 from the first two games.

I also hit a milestone last night: my first 200+ game of the season, closing out game three with a 222. I had just one open frame (a 4–7 leave in the ninth). My first ball strikes were strong, and even my 8- and 9-pin counts looked sharp. I made a last-minute ball change just before stepping up in frame one, and it proved to be a wise decision.

Games one and two lacked the same energy. My ongoing struggle to convert spares contributed to the lower scores. In game one, I saw more 7-pin counts than I can remember—five in a row—and only converted two for marks. I also left my first 7–10 split of the season and missed both on the spare attempt.

Game two brought a similar pattern, but this time it was 9-pin counts. Five out of ten frames started with 9 pins on the first ball. If only I had this kind of consistency in a no-tap tournament! Unfortunately, the first three frames were all 9 and open. Both games fell far below my season average. Despite hitting the pocket regularly, the strikes didn’t come, and spare conversions were inconsistent. Disappointing.

Next week, we go up against the top-ranked team. I pre-bowled with them a few weeks ago, and they’re solid. Hopefully, we can squeeze in a practice session before then to focus on spares and improve first-ball execution. A 100+ pin advantage at the start of each game doesn’t mean much if we can’t maintain it.

Keep striking.