ABT North - Wheaton Bowl - Wheaton, Illinois
After a few months off from tournament bowling due to a bad labrum in my left hip, I decided to drive up to Wheaton to bowl the ABT Chicagoland North event. I finished in 7th place in this center the last time, so I felt fairly confident going in.
To me, most ABT North events play the same way. The outside is pretty much O.B., so you have to play fairly deep while making sure not to leak the ball too far to the outside. With that in mind, I started practice with my Mastermind Genius trying to play 4th arrow out to about 10-11. It was obvious that the Genius wasn't going to read the lane quickly enough, so I decided to go to my Mastermind Intellect. The Intellect defintely had stronger teeth from that line, but the backend was a bit strong for my liking. I feared any miss inside was going to be ugly. As such, I decided to try my original Mastermind, a ball that I really haven't gotten to use very much due to its strength. I immediately loved what I saw! The Mastermind still go to the spot, but it came off a lot smoother and still delivered great hit. I knew I had what I wanted!
My decision was good as I exploited my good look to the tune of +138 for my three games of qualifying, which gave me the top score and an automatic berth into the semifinals. Now, it was just a matter of grabbing some lunch and watching what the lanes were doing during the final qualifying block.
I enjoyed a delicision chicken quesadilla bought for me by a very generous fellow qualifier (Thanks, Tom Variola!), and I watched how the lanes were breaking down. I thought I had things figured out fairly well. Sadly, I must have paid more attention to my quesadilla than I did to what I was seeing on the lanes because my lane play during the semis was abysmal! lol
It was obvious from practice that my Mastermind wasn't going to work as it had during qualifying, and the Intellect wasn't going to be any better. Both balls were struggling to push to the spot. As such, I balled down to the Genius and moved 4-5 boards further left than where I had been during qualifying. Sadly, that wasn't the right move as I had to be absolutely perfect to get the ball to the pocket from there.
By the time we got to the middle of the third game of the block, I was already out of contention, so I grabbed my Melee Jab and moved all the way in to 6th arrow. Voila! That was where I should've been all along. From there, I had hold if I missed inside, and I had hit and recovery to the outside. I pounded the pocket the rest of the way, but it was much too little too late, resulting in +23 and a 14th-place finish.
It was disappointing to realize that I just didn't move enough quickly enough; I just couldn't force myself to believe that the shot had changed that much after only three games, especially since there weren't that many bowlers trying to play inside with me. Oh well, in the end, a cash is a cash, and now I know what to expect next time!
