In the past couple of months, I have been competing in many PBA Regional events. PBA regional tournaments are a great way for me to stay sharp, get in some great competitive practice, as well as get a chance to bowl on the PBA patterns.
My first PBA Regional event of the year was the PBA West Ebonite Open at Palm Springs Lanes in Cathedral City, CA. In this event, we competed on the Chameleon oil pattern. After the practice session on Friday afternoon, myself, Scott Norton and Dave Wodka put on a great clinic for the bowlers in the area. We focused on physical keys to improve bowler's individual games as well as spare shooting techniques. We had a great turnout and everyone seemed to have a great time!
The next day we started qualifying and the lanes ended up being pretty high scoring for the event. I shot 224, 235, 211, 239, 169, 225 and ended on a big note shooting 258, 258 for my last two games. This put me at +219 for the 8-game block. However, I ended up missing the cut by 1 pin to make it to the top 16 matchplay finals. I still cashed in the event, but making matchplay would have been nicer. ;)
The next PBA Regional event I competed in was the PBA Earl Anthony Memorial Classic at Earl Anthony's Dublin Bowl. We competed on none other than the Earl Anthony oil pattern, which played very tough all weekend long. Scores were low, so shot making and spares were premium!
During qualifying I had a very roller coaster day, shooting games of 201, 177, 256, 202, 158, 279, 215 and 183 for +69 on the day. That score put me in 6th place overall going into the top 16 matchplay finals. In this regional, we bowled the old PBA Regional format, which is16 games of round robin matchplay on Sunday.
I bowled extremely well on Sunday, shooting +231 scratch for the 16 games and also won 10 out of 16 matches. Each match won earned me an extra 30 pin bonus. However, despite the great bowling and number of matches I'd won, I remained in exactly 6th place for the tournament. Still a great cash and great weekend!
Next stop for the PBA Regional series lead us to the amazingly beautiful state of Hawaii, where we competed in three separate events on the islands.
The first event was a one day event at Schofield Lanes on the Schofield Barracks Army base on the island of Oahu. We competed on the Scorpion oil pattern. Scores were pretty low for this event, which cut to the top 8 for the matchplay finals. I stayed fairly consistent but ran into a little trouble in the middle of the block, shooting games of 201, 222, 167, 213, 179, 215, 195 and then a BIG 235 the last game to be +27 and sneak in a check, cashing in the event which took +20 to cash.
My best friend Scott Norton had an amazing look all day. He lead qualifying, shooting +239 and then went 5-0 in matchplay to win his 5th PBA Regional title, defeating Rhino Page 245-214.
Our next event, was the PBA Naval Station Open, which actually took place at the bowling center on Pearl Harbor Naval base. We bowled on the Chameleon oil pattern for the event. To say that the lanes were hooking is saying it mildly! I didn't have a great look all day and shot -49 in the event. It took +17 to cash and only +64 to make the top 8 matchplay finals. I will say that it was really cool to be able to bowl on the Pearl Harbor Naval base. I guess if I had to pick an event to miss the cut at and have an extra day off, I'd pick it to be in Hawaii.
After our "wonderful" day of bowling, we decided to do something fun. So we headed up towards Hanauma Bay and actually saw a pod of whales, which breached a few times for us!
Our final event, we flew to the Big Island and ventured to KB Xtreme Lanes in Kona. The bowling center was really nice and had been recently remodeled. We again bowled on the Scorpion oil pattern and the lanes were again low scoring. I shot games of 214, 227, 200, 202, 174, 188, 241 and 254 to be +100 and qualify in 4th place. It only took +38 to make the top 8 matchplay finals.
In matchplay, I faced Tom Daugherty in the best of 5 matchplay finals. Tom won the first 2 games, and facing elimination, I struck out in the 10th frame the 3rd game to win and stay in the match. However, I couldn't get lined up well enough and Tom defeated me in game 4. I came in 6th place overall in the event.
After all of the regional tournaments, Scott and I decided to stay on the Big Island and sightsee for a couple of days. We had one of the most amazing experiences - snorkeling at night with Manta Rays. It was incredible! We also ventured to the Volcanoes National Park and got to see the glow of the Kilauea crater.
