Now that I had finished playing the PBA I could focus on the college tournament ahead. I could throw that awful gosh dang spare ball away and reunite with my Pepsi spare ball (which I wasn´t allowed to use in the PBA due to sponsorship rules).
I decided Thursday afternoon after I finished playing that I would n´t bowl, let my thumb get a break and study for my math test. Turns out I did n´t study at all cause I knew all the stuff needed so I went and took the test after lunch and scored PERFECT, yeah a 100%.
Friday morning I didn´t go to class cause I had to pack for the trip to Illinois, and frankly cause my teacher told me I didn´t need to come. So I packed and then went down to the RSC where we had rollcall, loaded up the van´s and took off, destination: Carterville, Illinois.
I had the "good" fortune of being in a van with zerbs, louis, izi, peters, barnes, aussi, mike heyes, JB and McBride... I say "good" cause McBride´s ass was litiraly on fire, burning up gas every 5 minutes, and of course can´t forget our driver, Coach V, who was a blast.
It took us some 8-9 hours to get there after like 4 stops at McDonalds but the hotel we stayed at was pretty deacent compared to other ones. However I had to share a room with Hank, Brewah and share a bed with Rob, which turned out to be okay, exept for the fact that Hank turned our room into a meat freezer!
Saturday afternoon we had the first block of 5 games, and it was suppose to be first day we play U.S. Open pattern and second day we play similar to the Qubica AMF pattern (a christmas tree), but the retard who was conditioning the lanes unplugged the machine after 14 lanes so the oil machine defaulted to a sort of house pattern so more than half was house pattern and other half U.S. Open. We didn´t realize it until the second game so it was kinda confusing. The first block I did very bad, I missed a lot of spares due to my timing was off and I had problems with carry on the house pattern, cause it dried up so fast.
On Sunday we had a block of 4 games and all on the U.S. Open pattern, which is about 70% harder than the house pattern but for some reason I averaged 20 pins a game higher on the US Open pattern so overall I averaged in the 190+
So now it´s gonna be study study study cause next tournament is in December.
That´s all for now
Later
Thursday, October 30, 2008
My PBA Experience
Sorry about the delay, I´m sure everyone´s been waiting with anticipation for this post. (NOT)
My third and last day of qualification started off great with me being notified that I made a scorecard violation and got a fined $50 and not only me but the guy I was playing with too, cause he signed verified my scorecard.
I managed to open up the lanes in warm ups really well, burned a spot around 5th board where my breakpoint was so I had a good look, and it turned out to be good cause first game I shot 190+ and in my second game after back to back open frames to start the game I managed to save it with a six bagger ( six consecutive strikes ) and if it weren´t for a freaking 8.pin in eight frame and a 9.pin in tenth frame I would have shot 250+ but shot 227. After the second game we moved down to the other end of the bowling center (where the lanes play much tighter) and I managed to keep my reaction the same and shot 220. However in my fourth game I hesitated to make a big jump to the inside of the lane and that cost me cause I shot 178. After that I managed to keep it close to par as I finished the day 10 over ( over 200 ave. ) and saved my tournament average close to 195.
So my PBA debute ended on a good note and off to the Southern Illinois Elite Invitational.
My third and last day of qualification started off great with me being notified that I made a scorecard violation and got a fined $50 and not only me but the guy I was playing with too, cause he signed verified my scorecard.
I managed to open up the lanes in warm ups really well, burned a spot around 5th board where my breakpoint was so I had a good look, and it turned out to be good cause first game I shot 190+ and in my second game after back to back open frames to start the game I managed to save it with a six bagger ( six consecutive strikes ) and if it weren´t for a freaking 8.pin in eight frame and a 9.pin in tenth frame I would have shot 250+ but shot 227. After the second game we moved down to the other end of the bowling center (where the lanes play much tighter) and I managed to keep my reaction the same and shot 220. However in my fourth game I hesitated to make a big jump to the inside of the lane and that cost me cause I shot 178. After that I managed to keep it close to par as I finished the day 10 over ( over 200 ave. ) and saved my tournament average close to 195.
So my PBA debute ended on a good note and off to the Southern Illinois Elite Invitational.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
My PBA Debute
On Tuesday I played my first 6 game block of the PBA World Championship. In warm ups I couldn´t really open up the lanes like I did in the practice session the day before, also the lanes were a lot tighter then in the practice session. I started off okay, only opened one frame in my first game but had a hard time finding the pocket but made a move and tried playing the outside, BIG MISTAKE. With probably 6 splits in my second game, 148! so after my first 2 games I´m roughly 80 pins below par. Then we move all the way to the other side of the building where the lanes play a lot more tighter and I could move way down on the lane and play the inside, and I struck gold! However that´s when my "new" spareball started messing with me, although i managed to shoot 227 and then a 202 with a disapointing back to back open frames in 9 and 10th. to finish my first block I shot a 180 and struck out for a 214 with 2 single pin misses :( however managed to keep my ave. at 191,5. Not good but alright for my PBA deubte.
Day 2
Today was my second block, and not on the fresh, so before the squad I shined up most of my balls because like I expected it got dry and a lot of guys were lofting the ball over the gutter. I started off with a bad ball and line choice which cost me, cause I left split after split after split, and shot under 150. In my second game we moved down again to the other end of the house where I could amp up my speed so the ball wouldn´t read the midlane and it worked I shot 227 (which should have been a 250 game and a 203 game which should have been a 230 game but a couple of 8,9 and 10 pins stopped that from happening. After that I hit a really bad pair and left splits left and right, and shot 150 after that I still struggled a little and shot 180 and then finished the round with a 212 shooting just below 190 ave. so my overall ave is 190.
Tomorrow morning I play the fresh again and with a little more knowledge of how the lanes play, hopefully I can make up some needed pins!
That´s all for now.
Stefán
Day 2
Today was my second block, and not on the fresh, so before the squad I shined up most of my balls because like I expected it got dry and a lot of guys were lofting the ball over the gutter. I started off with a bad ball and line choice which cost me, cause I left split after split after split, and shot under 150. In my second game we moved down again to the other end of the house where I could amp up my speed so the ball wouldn´t read the midlane and it worked I shot 227 (which should have been a 250 game and a 203 game which should have been a 230 game but a couple of 8,9 and 10 pins stopped that from happening. After that I hit a really bad pair and left splits left and right, and shot 150 after that I still struggled a little and shot 180 and then finished the round with a 212 shooting just below 190 ave. so my overall ave is 190.
Tomorrow morning I play the fresh again and with a little more knowledge of how the lanes play, hopefully I can make up some needed pins!
That´s all for now.
Stefán
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
PBA World Championship
Today I had my practice session on the pattern we´re playing this week in the PBA World Championship. Today and all week I get to play with many of the best bowlers in the world, the "Young Guns" and the veterans of this PBA tour as well as some international superstars in the bowling world.The tournament format is 3x 6 game blocks, 2 of the blocks are played on fresh oil and 1 is played on "used" oil. After those 18 games, they cut to top25% of the field and those who make it there cash and play 9 more games before they cut to top 40 and from there on is matchplay. By playing this world championship, pba event, I am breaking ground in Icelandic bowling (which is kinda cool) cause no one from Iceland has played a PBA event. But what´s really cool about this week is that I get to play with all the pro´s.
However there is a chance of a dilemma, if I cash (qualify) I will have to play on Friday, a block of 9 games, which means that I won´t be able to go to the SI Elite Invitational tournament in Carterville, Illanois. Which wouldn´t be that bad cause I would get great experience and cash in the pba, on the other hand I would be missing out on one of the 2 collegiate events left of the season for the development team. That will all be worked out on Thursday afternoon.
So I will be updating this site with scores and stories later ....
that´s all for now!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Team Selection and Midstates
Okay now I´ve come to the decision that since I have some free time during the day, I´m gonna devote more time to this blog.
The Wichita State University Collegiate Bowling Team was posted two weeks ago, and as I predicted I did not make the selected team; However, I did make the Developmental Team ( the B-Team) and the difference between the two is that the selected team plays more tournaments, is the official representative of the school and they get equipment and more intense training.
I got assigned an associate coach, I don´t really know his first name, but I know his last name is Slaugther and he´s a cop. It will be good to get some regular training and get to work!
Last week they announced the Selected and Developmental teams for the Midstates tournament, which is the first tournament of the season and I was on a pretty good team, so I thought. As been told throughout history a team is as strong as it´s weakest link, which turned out to be someone I kinda dislike (let´s just say clash of characters) but i´m not gonna spend time cussing someone out cause they had a bad day/tournament, cause it happens to everyone.
I started the tournament off really good and after the first block (four games) I was over par (200+ average) and psyched about what was going on. The format of the collegiate tournaments is usually in the way is that teams consist of five players and they play a block of three to four games at a time and then another three to four games without reconditioning the lanes, they also consist of so called "baker" games where the team plays one game with each player playing two frames. This specific tournament had 10 team games and 16 baker games. After seven team games I was doing quite good, I didn´t miss many makeable spares and was hitting the pocket like a mad man.
Then came day two, with a 7:30 a.m. roll call after an exhausting day before I had a hard time lining up to the lanes. The lanes were hooking much more then the day before so I absolutely butchered my average during the last three team games. On to the baker part of the tournament, in the beginning of the tournament, our team (team Steelsmith) made a bet with team Waliczek that whoever had lower pinfall would have to do 50 reps. After the 10 team games we had a 20 pin lead on them. When the baker section started I was on fire I had a good reacion on the lanes and only left 2 splits and struck like a machine. After 14 baker games with only 2 left I was anchoring our team with a good 60 pins on team Waliczek but then they started striking like maniacs, they shot a 255 and after a bad start to our game we managed to string 6 strikes in the end for a 212 so with one game to go we had roughly a 20 pin lead and we started off really good, after 5 frames we were on par but after the other team finished with a 222 we knew we needed to fill frames to win. With that in mind with 4 frames to go it looked like we were gonna do it but then Hank threw a solid pocket hit, but a ringing 10 pin came to our fall as he didn´t spare it. Also Andy missed the pocket for an 8 count and chopped the spare, which he shouldn´t have done cause he made a stupid decision to use his strike ball for the spare, so it was up to Matt and me to finish the game to win with a small margin. So Matt did his thing and struck so it was all up to me I needed 2 strikes in the 10th to seal the deal, I got up to the approach and I was playing so deep that I was lofting over the gutter, I threw the ball really well but it read the lane earlier then I predicted and with a real high pocket hit I left a 4 pin :(
so it was all over, I made my spare and threw 2handed on my fillball, and when I threw the fillball a cameraman from the local news was taping me so I ended up being on the sports highlights, which was really cool cause they only showed clips of 3 bowlers...
This week I need to bowl a lot cause next week the PBA tour comes to Wichita for the PBA World Championship which is the first major tournament of the PBA season, and yours truly is going to be playing, and also breaking down barriers for Icelandic bowling.
well that´s all for now, I promise to follow up with updates
Good Night and Good Luck
The Wichita State University Collegiate Bowling Team was posted two weeks ago, and as I predicted I did not make the selected team; However, I did make the Developmental Team ( the B-Team) and the difference between the two is that the selected team plays more tournaments, is the official representative of the school and they get equipment and more intense training.
I got assigned an associate coach, I don´t really know his first name, but I know his last name is Slaugther and he´s a cop. It will be good to get some regular training and get to work!
Last week they announced the Selected and Developmental teams for the Midstates tournament, which is the first tournament of the season and I was on a pretty good team, so I thought. As been told throughout history a team is as strong as it´s weakest link, which turned out to be someone I kinda dislike (let´s just say clash of characters) but i´m not gonna spend time cussing someone out cause they had a bad day/tournament, cause it happens to everyone.
I started the tournament off really good and after the first block (four games) I was over par (200+ average) and psyched about what was going on. The format of the collegiate tournaments is usually in the way is that teams consist of five players and they play a block of three to four games at a time and then another three to four games without reconditioning the lanes, they also consist of so called "baker" games where the team plays one game with each player playing two frames. This specific tournament had 10 team games and 16 baker games. After seven team games I was doing quite good, I didn´t miss many makeable spares and was hitting the pocket like a mad man.
Then came day two, with a 7:30 a.m. roll call after an exhausting day before I had a hard time lining up to the lanes. The lanes were hooking much more then the day before so I absolutely butchered my average during the last three team games. On to the baker part of the tournament, in the beginning of the tournament, our team (team Steelsmith) made a bet with team Waliczek that whoever had lower pinfall would have to do 50 reps. After the 10 team games we had a 20 pin lead on them. When the baker section started I was on fire I had a good reacion on the lanes and only left 2 splits and struck like a machine. After 14 baker games with only 2 left I was anchoring our team with a good 60 pins on team Waliczek but then they started striking like maniacs, they shot a 255 and after a bad start to our game we managed to string 6 strikes in the end for a 212 so with one game to go we had roughly a 20 pin lead and we started off really good, after 5 frames we were on par but after the other team finished with a 222 we knew we needed to fill frames to win. With that in mind with 4 frames to go it looked like we were gonna do it but then Hank threw a solid pocket hit, but a ringing 10 pin came to our fall as he didn´t spare it. Also Andy missed the pocket for an 8 count and chopped the spare, which he shouldn´t have done cause he made a stupid decision to use his strike ball for the spare, so it was up to Matt and me to finish the game to win with a small margin. So Matt did his thing and struck so it was all up to me I needed 2 strikes in the 10th to seal the deal, I got up to the approach and I was playing so deep that I was lofting over the gutter, I threw the ball really well but it read the lane earlier then I predicted and with a real high pocket hit I left a 4 pin :(
so it was all over, I made my spare and threw 2handed on my fillball, and when I threw the fillball a cameraman from the local news was taping me so I ended up being on the sports highlights, which was really cool cause they only showed clips of 3 bowlers...
This week I need to bowl a lot cause next week the PBA tour comes to Wichita for the PBA World Championship which is the first major tournament of the PBA season, and yours truly is going to be playing, and also breaking down barriers for Icelandic bowling.
well that´s all for now, I promise to follow up with updates
Good Night and Good Luck
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