A tale of two lanes, a scary one!
I had the best of looks, I had the worst of looks. I had the best of plans, I had the worst of plans. Okay, you get the point. There are some nights where I feel like I'm in complete control, and there are others where I feel completely lost. Tonight was one of those strange occurences in which I felt in complete control on one lane, and I was completely lost on the other. As you can imagine, that lead to less-than-enjoyable performance.
Game 1
X 7/ X 72 X X X 8- X 9/9 - 191
Trying to build upon the momentum from the past two weeks, I spent most of practice trying to play a straighter line with my Mastermind Genius; however, a few shots with the Grudge toward the end of practice convinced me that that was the ball to use. It was a good decision...somewhat. As you can see, I struck on all five shots on the right lane. The left lane? Well, let's just say that was an adventure. I missed the ball at the bottom in the first frame, resulting in a 1-2-4. I thought I pured the ball in the fourth, but it just never picked up resulting in a 2-4-10. I carried a weak hit in the 6th before leaving a 2-10 on another ball that I thought was decent in the 8th. Then, after adjusting a couple of boards further to the right, I proceeded to go 4-pin-4-pin in the 10th to finish at 191.
Game 2
81 9/ X 9- 81 9/ 9/ X X X8/ - 183
After the back-to-back 4-pins in the 10th, I moved two boards left and stuck with the Grudge to start Game 2. The first ball looked good off my hand but never picked up, resulting in a swish zone 5-7. After ring-10, strike, flat-10 (miss - dummy), it was clear to me that it was time for a ball change. As such, I moved way right and went to the Tropical Breeze that worked so well for me last week. My first shot on the left lane looked good, but it failed to drive, resulting in another swish zone 5-7. I then went flat ten, 2-pin before locking in and throwing three in a row before a badly-pulled second shot in the tenth resulted in a 6-10 and a finish of 183.
Game 3
X X 9/ X X 8/ X 9/ X 8/X - 217
Sticking with the Tropical, at least things stabilized here. Once again, I had the world on the right lane, striking in four out of the five shots I threw there. Sadly, the left lane still proved tricky. I managed to stay clean, but I was only able to muster 217 for the game, which left me at 591 for the set.
Overall, I'm more perplexed than unhappy. A righty on my pair shot 700 plus, so I'm not trying to say that the left lane was impossible or anything; nevertheless, for some reason, I couldn't seem to figure out what I was seeing and how to get the ball to roll through the pins properly on that lane. On the night, I struck on 11 out of 16 shots on the right lane compare to 6 out of 17 on the left lane. Plus, four of my five opens came on the left lane, and all were splits on shots that I actually liked to some degree at release. Again, clearly there was something that I just wasn't seeing. It's a disappointing setback after two good weeks in a row, but I'll be back at it next week. I also think that some practice will be in order this weekend.
Until next time, as always, thanks for reading!
