Missy Ventures to PBA Summer Swing

This week I travelled from Team USA Training Camp straight to the PBA Summer Swing in Shawnee, OK at FireLake Bowling Center.

We competed on the newer PBA patterns - 32' Wolf, 40' Bear and 52' Badger. Each tournament consisted of 6 games of qualifying and then cut straight to the top 18 players for 6 more games of match play, after which the field was then cut to the top 5 players for the stepladder finals to be held on CBS Sports Network.

I felt great during the practice session and especially after training all week long at Team USA Training camp.

Our first pattern was on the shortest of the PBA patterns - the 32' Wolf pattern. I unfortunately started out poorly, not getting my ball to shape up correctly shooting -80 for the first 3 games. I finally made the correct move switching to my LX16 on the left lanes and Columbia 300 Omen on the right lanes and shot games of 204, 254 and 210 to get to -12 overall. The top 18 cut took +143 for the 6 games with Chris Barnes eventually being top qualifier, followed by Mike Fagan, Martin Larsen, Sean Rash and Chris Loschetter.

The next day, we competed on the 40' flat Bear pattern. Having great success on this pattern at last year's inaugural summer swing, I was pumped for the tournament. Unfortunately, I didn't strike enough shooting consistent scores, but not high enough to make the cut. I bowled games of 202, 193, 202, 184, 234 and 200 to be +15 overall on the day. I was very disappointed as it only took +92 to make the top 18 cut. Leading the tournament was Tommy Jones followed by Bill O'Neill, Ronnie Russell, Rhino Page and Dick Allen to round out the top 5 stepladder finals.

In the final tournament, we bowled on the longest of the PBA patterns - the 52' Badger. With my bowling ball not hooking a whole lot to start, I was just trying to keep the ball in play and pick up my spares. I had to throw it the slowest I possibly could and used a 500 grit pin down Columbia 300 Enigma to try and get my ball to face up. After two games, I then switched to my pin up Columbia 300 Take Down and later used an LX 16. I physically bowled by far the best on this day, but my scores didn't reflect it. I shot games of 220, 189, 236, 200, 193 and 213 to shoot +51 overall. It took +121 to make the cut, with Bill O'Neill leading the pack for the stepladder finals, followed by Pete Weber, Marshall Kent, Brian Valenta and Mika Koivuniemi.

Be sure to watch all of the action this summer on the CBS Sports Network.

Til next time...