On
Tour with Brian Voss
Ace Hardware Championship - Wickliffe,
OH (Nov. 29 - Dec. 3, 2006 )
This was a really different week. The bowling center we bowled in
had 80 lanes, which is huge. The heads were guardian, the rest was
wood. And there was a LOT of topography issues from pair to pair,
and actually lane to lane. That's one of the things that kept the
scores down, but also the carry. There were massive pocket 7-10's,
4-9's, solid ten pins, etc. It was driving the guys crazy. This was
a shorter pattern, so low flare or shiny were the balls of choice.
I used a Cheeta, R47, and shiny Green Alien the first round, and scored
fairly good. Shot about 100 over and was around 24th. The second round,
I drilled one of our new products, the Eclipse, which is a little
stronger than the R47, so it worked quite well. I ended up qualifying
26th with about 160 over, the cut being 145 over. I was paired against
Jack Jurek, who has been on fire lately. Knew it wasn't going to be
an easy match. I started out the first game with the first 10 strikes,
and left a pocket 7-10 in the 11th for a 286. Good start, but then
he started out with the first 11 strikes the next game, but didn't
strike on the last ball. That tied the match at 1 game apiece. We
were on a pair that obviously was one of the higher scoring ones,
so we battled it out the next few games with some good scores. I ended
up winning the match 4-2. "Finally" won a match I was saying to myself.
Next I was paired against Chris Warren, a firery little competitor.
We were on a tougher pair, but he didn't have any problem striking
the first two games. I was using a shiny Green Alien, trying to play
the lanes like he was, which was left of the third arrow, sending
it out to about 5. He kept moving left, and after the 2nd game, he
was already left of 4th arrow, and they were getting tough. I moved
out to the 2nd arrow going straight with my new Eclipse, and as he
was starting to struggle, I managed to get a few doubles and stayed
clean for the next two games and tied the match at 2 games apiece.
He made a giant move left, and was playing left of the 5th arrow,
sending it out to about 6, and found some strikes while I was grinding
along. He won the 5th game, and in the final game, I bowled a really
good game, full of 10 pins and 4 pins, but he got some late strikes
to shut me out and win the match. Overall, a good week, actually my
best so far. Things are progressing, and as long as the body stays
in shape, I'll continue to work hard. Next week is the Cheetah pattern,
gotta take my striking clothes with me, the scores will be high, again.
Wish me luck!
BV
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