Saddleback Lanes to Host PBA Regional and Pro-am Event

Saddleback Lanes in Mission Viejo, Calif. will be hosting a PBA regional event and Pro-am tournament on July 9-11th. The event marks the first time in over 10 years that a PBA event has been held at this center. Saddleback Lanes is the bowling center that I practice and give lessons at, as well as the site for my father's pro shop.

The practice session will be on Friday, July 9th from 1-3pm. Tournament competition for the PBA Regional begins at 8am on Saturday, July 10th with A squad and then B squad will take the lanes at 2pm. The finals will conclude on Sunday, July 11th, starting at 8am.

The PBA Pro-am event will take place on Saturday night, July 10th at 7pm. The format is 3 games of 9-pin No-Tap and each participant will be able to bowl with 6 different PBA pros. Cost is $79 for adults with the option of upgrading to a bowling ball package for $179, which includes a 900 Global Bounty Hunter Pearl. Junior and Senior bowlers pay an entry fee of $59, with an optional bowling ball package of $139, which includes a 900 Global Link S30. Winner of the adult pro-am will win $300. Winner of the Junior pro-am will earn $100 scholarship and the senior pro-am winner will take home $100. Please contact Saddleback Lanes at (949) 586-5300 for more information or to sign up.

All of the PBA events throughout the weekend will be free for spectators.

2010 USBC Open Championships

This past weekend, I bowled the 2010 USBC Open Championships in Reno, Nev.

We drove the nice 9 hour drive in to Reno on Thursday and arrived just in time for the 2nd half of the NBA Finals game and watched the Lakers win the championship. To be completely honest, I'm not a huge basketball fan, but when it's the playoffs, I will watch and cheer for the Lakers.

On Friday, a few of my teammates and I decided to bowl the side events- the Bowlers Journal and BTM tourneys, at the Grand Sierra. I didn't post any stellar scores at either event and really used the tourneys as practice and warm up for the next two days.

Friday night was a lot of fun, as our whole team stayed up until midnight because fellow teammate Bryan Norton turned 21. So we naturally embarrassed him a little bit and sang him "Happy Birthday" right in front of all of the pit tables and then he proceeded to play some blackjack.

Saturday night we bowled team event. Our lanes were kind of squirelly and changed quite a bit throughout the 3 games, but by the end, they had opened up nicely if you could keep up with the moves about every 3-4 frames.

I shot 198, 211 and 220 for a 629 series and our team shot 2954.

Then on Sunday (Father's Day), we bowled doubles and singles. I got to bowl with my dad which is always a lot of fun! In doubles, I shot 166, 225 and 205 and we shot 1139 as a team. My dad actually bowled pretty well, he just didn't score very well and wasn't getting any breaks.

Then in singles, I shot 228, 200 and 206 for a 634 series and had 1859 for all-events. So it wasn't one of my better years, but we all still had fun and that's what it's all about!

Black Oak Casino PBA Regional

Hello everyone!

I know it's been forever since my last post and I thoroughly apologize! All of the wedding planning has been eating up all of my free time!

During the end of May, I bowled in the Black Oak Casino PBA Regional event in Tuolumne, Calif. The scores were super high, as we competed on the Viper Oil pattern.

For the 8 games of qualifying, I was +377, averaging 247.12 for the 8 game block and was in 4th place after both A and B squads.

The next day, we bowled 5 more games of semis. I shot another +165 over for that five games, being +542 overall and was seeded third for matchplay.

My first match, I faced Scott Kraye. This match came down to a final game five finish, after an unusual decision made by my opponent in game 4. Needing 8 pins to win and 7 to tie, he decided to pick up his spare and throw it straight at the headpin for count. He then proceeded to miss the headpin, leaving 6 pins. So I actually won game 4 by a single pin.

Game 5 came down to the wire, as I was ahead the whole game. Then Kraye struck out 8th, 9th and 10th to force me to mark in the 10th frame (a very similar situation to the Queens TV show match). So I went up and made a good shot and left another pocket split!!! And again lost. So needless to say, after a few bad breaks in-a-row in some crucial situations, I took a couple of weeks off from bowling to clear my head a bit.

I finished 10th overall in the tournament.