Queens and USBC Women's Championships

I ventured to Reno for the USBC Queens and Women's Championships both held at bowling's premiere venue - the National Bowling Stadium. For those of you that have never had the privilege of bowling at the National Bowling Stadium, let me try and describe the experience.

As you take the escalator ride up to the main level of the stadium, you see the enormous Lane 81 bowling pro shop, full of merchandise from every bowling ball manufacturer out there. You may also catch a glimpse of the full-size bowling lane located inside the pro shop, where you can get your game video taped and fully analyzed on the C.A.T.S system.

Then, as you get off of the escalator and approach the bowling lanes, your jaw will drop at the sight of 80 lanes, giant score boards spanning 440 feet total (the longest video screen in the world) and stadium seating much like other sporting events. The ceiling is a measly 5 stories above the lanes, making the bowling center seem larger than life. So you can imagine that when you first step foot on the lanes, it may take a little while to get used to the environment not to mention that your name up on the huge scoreboard can bee seen from about 20 lanes away.

Enough about the venue, let's talk about the actual bowling. First I bowled in the USBC Women's Championships. I bowled team event first and shot 222, 246 and 216 for a 684 series and our team shot 3015 total. Then in doubles, I died. We hit a pretty tough pair and every adjustment I tried didn't work. I only shot 523! (See everyone has bad days!) And then for singles, I rebounded and shot 195, 267 and 233 for a 695 series, giving me 1902 for all-events. Right now, in the classic division I am in 15th in singles, 15th in team event and 47th in all-events.

Then in the Queens tournament, I shot +134 for the 10 games of qualifying and was in 31st going into the final 5 games of round 3 qualifying. I bowled a really good set, shooting +130 and moving up into 9th place. Then the tournament was cut to the top 63 women plus last year's defending champion Lynda Barnes.

That's when the real tournament began. In the three-game total pins, double elimination style match play finals, I first bowled Kristen Warzinski and won 677-610. The next match I faced Jodi Woessner and lost 614-684, knocking me into the loser's bracket.

In the loser's bracket, I faced one of the Japanese pros Reiko Kosuda and won 686-622. The next match I faced fellow Japanese pro Takiko Naganawa and also won shooting 707-588, after being down 30 pins and shooting 170 the first game. Then I hit a terrible pair (which there were a couple of) and I couldn't match up. I lost to Jamie Martin 569-536 and was knocked out of the tournament.

I finished in 17th place overall.

The USBC Queens marked my last tournament for a while. I'll be bowling PBA Regional tournaments throughout the summer until the Women's U.S. Open in August.

Missy Visits Lemoore Naval Air Station

In early April, Missy visited Lemoore Naval Air Station in Central, California for the second year-in-a-row. After a fun first year visit, Lemoore bowlers asked Missy to come back and requested an even larger field for the clinics. This time around, Missy brought father, Frank Bellinder to help out with the clinics and answer any questions parents may have in regards to helping Missy during her junior bowling years.

Missy first put on a clinic for 20 junior bowlers and then conducted an adult clinic for 15 adults.

If you are interested in having Missy conduct a clinic or make an appearance at your bowling center, please contact Missy at missy@missybellinder.com.

Enjoy the pics!

Missy on ESPN this Sunday, April 12 from 1-3pm EST

Missy Bellinder will be competing in the PBA Women's Series Showdown on ESPN this Sunday, April 12th from 1-3pm EST. Missy was one of six women to qualify for this special bonus event. The event takes place in Lake Wales, FL at the kegel training center. Be sure to tune in!

More fun in Malaysia

After the Malaysian Open, my roomie Shalin Zulkifli and her husband took me to a few cool places before I headed back home to the States.

First, we went to Batu Caves, a gorgeous Hindu temple that has a HUGE gold statue of one of the Hindu gods. There are a million steep stairs leading up to the top of the cave (272 to be exact.) (They were numbered.) Upon arrival at the top, there's a dark cave with statues of Hindu gods and that leads to another cave that is open-air, allowing sunlight to come in.

Another unique sight was the abundance of wild monkeys around the entire grounds. It must have been that time of year too because a lot of the mothers had baby monkeys hanging on to their bellies as they roamed around and climbed up the trees and stairs. The place was absolutely amazing!

From the hot sweltering outdoors of Batu Caves, we then travelled up into the clouds to the much cooler resort of Genting Highlands. The hotel, casino, theme park resort truly resembles Vegas in a one-stop shop. If you've ever been to Vegas, Genting Highlands takes the best of each Vegas casino and combines it into one. Complete with the Venetian gondola rides and the Rio floats, this place has it all, plus more. Other activities include: Snow World, a room full of real snow for kids and adults alike to play in, along with a toboggan run and a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.

We even went to the outdoor theme park, but the bad weather had many of the roller coasters closed for the day.

All in all, my entire trip to Asia was a lot of fun! Enjoy the pics!

Also, check out the video of one of the bowlers from Chinese Taipei. For those of you that have never seen a spinner bowl, this will be a treat. But be sure to notice that he's also wearing a big wrist support. I've NEVER seen a spinner wear a wrist support before.

Malaysian Open Results

First off, let me briefly explain the format for this event. The tournament ran for a little over one week. Qualifying consisted of three games with your two best 3-game blocks counting towards making the finals. So you can bowl as many times as you want to try and improve your scores.

The top 3 from the local Malaysian bowlers and the top 3 from the overseas bowlers got one bye in the finals. Then there are 7 more bowlers from each the local and overseas pool that qualified for the finals. And finally, if you didn't make it through either of those ways, then there's another mixed pool of the next 12 highest bowlers.

I qualifed 2nd in the overseas pool with sets of 726 and 737, so I was automatically seeded into Round 2 of the finals. Round 2 consisted of 8 games, with the top 8 competitors advancing to the quarterfinals (no pins carried over from qualifying).

So in Round 2, I shot +186 for the 8 games and qualified in 5th position. That put me bowling against 4th seed Carolyn Dorin-Ballard for the quarterfinals.

In the quarterfinals, it was a best 2-out-of-3 format. I beat Carolyn the first game 197-182. Then she beat me the second game 248-215. That put us tied at 1-1. The last game I never missed the pocket but didn't carry (also leaving a pocket 7-10) and lost 230-203.

I finished 7th overall in the tournament and Carolyn went on to win the entire event.

For a complete finals story of the event, see the following link:http://www.mtbc.org.my/results/32ndopen-res.htm

Also, the picture above is the Top 8 women and Top 8 men for the quarterfinals. For the women(from left to right): me, Bernice Lim from Singapore, Wendy Macpherson, Geraldine NG from Singapore, Shayna Ng from Singapore, Sharon Koh from Malaysia, Shalin Zulkifli from Malaysia and Carolyn Dorin-Ballard

Missy Makes Top 8 at the Malaysian Open

Check out the story:

http://www.mtbc.org.my/results/32ndopen-res.htm#Round2

And be sure to check http://www.mtbc.org.my/ for complete up-to-date coverage of the finals that are taking place tomorrow!

Till then...

Missy in Malaysia

Hello from Malaysia!

The 32nd Canon Malaysian Open started this past Friday, March 13th at Sunway Pyramid Mega Lanes inside Pyramid shopping center. Pyramid shopping center is HUGE - four levels and really spread out. There's even an ice skating rink in the center and theme parks outside. So needless to say I haven't been bored. Prior to the start of the tournament I have been seeing the sights, shopping and eating lots of yummy food in Kuala Lumpur.

I went to the Malaysian National Museum in downtown KL and learned more about the Malaysian culture and history. Outside the museum is a traditional Malaysian village house made out of wood and tree leaves for the roof. See picture above.

I've also been eating a lot of really good food! From Indian, Chinese, Malaysian and Thai ,the food may look a little different but it all tastes yummy. We went to an outdoor Indian restaurant where a banana leaf is your plate and your hands are your utensils. See picture above.

I also had a Thai massage while I've been here because massages and facials are so cheap compared to the U.S. An hour massage is only $20.

The other day we did the craziest thing ever! Inside pyramid shopping center, we had a fish pedicure. Yes, FISH! It was so weird. You put your feet inside a fish tank full of minnows and the fish eat all of the dead skin off the bottom of your feet. It tickles sooooooooooo bad! I was laughing so hard for 5 minutes that I was crying. Eventually I got use to it and it really worked. My feet are so smooth.

Check out the link below for more information on how I'm doing in the Malaysian Open and be sure to stop by my blog for more information as the tournament progresses. Till then...

http://www.abf-online.org/results/32ndopen-res.htm#Mar14A