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!

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

Tryouts!

Apologies for the lack of commitment to this blog and the both readers but I´ve been really busy.


Since my last post I´ve been robbed, sunburned, traveled a shitload and started school.

A week ago a process started that is part of the Wichita State bowling program, known as tryouts, which determines which players are selected to represent the school´s collegiate bowling team. The tryout process is basically a fitness test and 33 games of bowling over 3 weeks on 10 different oil patterns. The first two weeks are split down to four 3 game sessions bowled on the so called "dual" patterns(which is basically the pair you play on has a different pattern on each lane) which is really hard and requires much concentration, not to mention that all the patterns we play on are extremely difficult, they say compared to the patterns on the professional tour, that they are easy in comparison to what we´re playing on in this tryout process. In week 3 they mix it up a bit and we have three sessions of 3 games on 6 different pattern(which is going to be very difficult) and then one session of a so called "skills test" where we have to hit targets out on the lane in order to get points.

The first week I didn´t really bowl that well, my stats are not good but my score has been consistent although I need to raise the bar a bit to have a shot at making the team.

So right now I´m somewhere in the middle but hopefully in week 2 I can better my stats, and score

well that´s all for now

:)

tata

20 year old SOB

Hey ... it´s time for a LONG overdue blog from me... let´s just say that I´ve been on summer vacation from my blogging duties :P

So I finished my semester at WSU with a B ave. which is really good but I intend on improving that next semester, I already picked out my classes so it´s going to be fun (except for the calculus).

From the end of May til mid July I worked my ass off trying to make as much money as I could working two jobs. One at a bank during the day and the other at night making pizza´s but unfortunately I had some tax problems and didn´t make as much as I had hoped, but sei la vi.

On July 16th I embarked on a journey to the wonderful place of Orlando with the Icelandic U23 National bowling team. Our mission was the World Youth Championship, I started off great with even par ( 200 ave. ) after day one and was sitting in 40th position only 50 pins behind the cut. Then disaster struck during the doubles event and I just simply made wrong decisions and played the pattern all wrong! which led to my downfall in both doubles and team, but Hafþór and Róbert got the bronze in doubles, which is the first medal Iceland has received at a world championship in bowling, so good job guys! However this trip tourned out to be AWESOME ... I met a lot of new people, made some new legendary friendships and other things happened which I can not disclose here on this site for reasons unknown.

Today I turned 20 years old and it turned out to be one of my best birthdays yet (eventhough I realized I´m getting OLD!). Today I packed my bags for Spain and took off at 4p.m. and was greeted by my parents at the airport and after a 40 minute long drive to the house we´re staying at we had a massive BBQ on the roof (well for lighting reasons we ate inside, but we had desert on the roof, which was awesome b.t.w.) and we toasted with some champagné and had a few cold ones, I finished the night by watching a rerun of the world ten pin masters where Chris Barnes shot 569 (290,279) to Kristen Penny´s 546 (248,298) and it was AWESOME... I have a feeling this trip is going to be LEGEN----- wait for it------ still not there------ almost there------ aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-----------DARY!!!!

well that´s all for now... I´ll be putting in more pic´s soon ... :P

Adios ,
Hasta Luego
Stefán Claessen

The Final Countdown

I really haven´t been paying attention to this poorly constructed blog so here´s what has happened between the last post and now...

School, bowling, wedding, old brides may hitting on me, more bowling, back injury and finals started.

With official school over, meaning that finals have started, I´ve already taken 2 finals before official finals week began and they both went really well and a high A in both classes can be expected. I´m literally counting down the hours until I can begin my 20 hour journey home. I have a final today at lunch, an English exam which is a written final(that means I don´t have to study for it because all I´m going to do is write an essay) then on Friday I have my Public Speaking final, and I need 55 points out of 100 to get a C for the class ( which is also a pass ) then on Monday I have my Astronomy final, the good thing about that final is that I´ve already passed the class before the final, I only need 30/100 to get a C which means I´ll get a high C or possibly a low B. The finals I already took were Human Comm and The Art of Dance where I can´t get lower than an A which means my GPA will be either high B or a low B depending on my last finals. After my finals I have two days to pack all my belongings(although I kinda went a little nuts the other day and packed most of my stuff so there is little to do). I have to get a storage space for my mini fridge and microwave and my bags which contain most of my clothing. I´ve been working really hard on my game with Justin Romeck, and it´s going pretty good, my swing is almost there and the release is on it´s way. So watch out WYC Orlando!!!

It´s Danielle´s birthday today so a happy birthday in order to her. My journey home will begin on May 22th and starts 7:50 in the morning with a flight from the ITC airport in Wichita although I´m going to the airport at 1 or 2 a.m. or about 5 hours before my flight and fly for about 2 hours to Minneapolis, Minnesota. In Minneapolis I have to wait for 9 hours so what I´m going to do is go to the Mall of America for a couple of hours, shop a little and get some junk food before my 6 hour flight back to Iceland where I´ll arrive about 7 in the morning and my parents are flying to London the same morning so we are going to meet inside the airport and pull of the greatest switch in history, where they give me their car keys and I take their car home from the airport! Brilliant! I know!!!

Right now it´s about 00:40 and I´m waiting to see Gavin DeGraw perform on Last Call with Carson Daily(which is a lame talk show but it´s going to be worth it)

There´s nothing much coming up for me except finishing my finals and returning home, where I will probably pass out from all the eating I will do, because over here in Americaland they don´t have any good candy or food (that isn´t fast food)

That´s all for now, I will make a new post as soon as I get my grades but adios.

Stefán

Shockers, National Champions!

Last Saturday, The Wichita State Shocker mens and womens team competed Intercollegiate Team Championship semi finals. The womens team seeded 1st so they only had to win one round, best of 7 games match, while the men seeded third and had to win two rounds, best of seven game matches, while their opponent Saginaw Valley, ranked 1st in the nation only had to win one round of best of 7 game matches. Wichita´s mens team fell behind 0-2 making bad shots and not matching the strike number of Saginaw Valley, but they managed to turn things around and win the next three games making it 3-2 in favor of the Shocks. When Saginaw won the next game, making it even 3-3 and only needing one win to knock out Wichita, the Shockers kicked it into next gear and pulled a 4-3 win and forcing Saginaw into a second best of 7 game match. After that win Wichita got the confidence to put the nail through Saginaw´s coffin and knock them out almost 4-0 but in the fourth game it came up to the 10th frame where Saginaw´s anchor Dan McLelland kept Saginaw in the race, with both teams shooting 260+ game but Saginaw with a close win making it 3-1. It did not last long for Wichita guaranteed it´s spot in the TV finals with a 4-1 win over Saginaw ( and I think it´s worth to mention that by defeating Saginaw, Wichita stopped them from winning their third consecutive National Championship).

The Wichita womens team breezed through their semi final with a 4-0 victory over Morehead State University, as the number 1 seed they only had to win one round of best of 7 game match. The women were looking at facing Pikeville college in the TV finals.

The mens finals was up first and I was sitting in the stands besides the lane cheering on the team. Their opponent in the final was the University of Nebraska Las Vegas (UNLV) and I knew from the moment Wichita beat Saginaw that they would be victorious, and it proved to be right. The Wichita State shockers beat UNLV 202-171 and 203-169 quite easily on their way to win their 8th National Championship in school history, which made 16 overall National Championships including the womens 8 titles which could have been nine after their final.

The womens team had breezed through the sectionals, qualifying in the Nationals, matchplay and the semifinals, but when it came came to the actual finals everything just fell to pieces, a foul in the 8th frame following a spare, lost the game for Wichita. Giving Pikeville the first game, the shocker girls needed to pull out the big guns; however, some bad decisions cost them a national title, Pikeville won 184-171, 183-158 and stopped the Wichita womens victory stride.

I give my congratulations to the Shocker men.

for now that´s all.
Stefán

The Scandinavian Society

First of all, my apologies for being lazy and preoccupied, and not making the time to blog, I know a "lot" of people who read this were disappointed.

The other day I received an e-mail from an anthropology professor from Wichita State University, and in that e-mail was an invitation to a dinner in a Scandinavian Society here in Wichita. At first I was really exciting, with the picture in my head that I would be meeting young Scandinavian people that had residency in Wichita. When the event took place, Peer the anthropology professor picked me up and he´s Danish so the little Danish I still know had no use at all since he´s been in the states the past 30 years but I managed to show off a little bit. We got to the assembly early because Peer needed to attend a meeting before everything started, this "dinner" took place at a church common room, which was really nice; however, when I walked in to the church I had a major shock, the average age of the people inside was in the late 70´s!!! Peer introduced me to some people and left for the meeting, fortunately all the people was really nice and they had a lot of questions about Iceland, most of the people was 2nd and 3rd generation Scandinavian, with a couple of exception. Let´s just say everyone under the age of 55 was 1st generation, I was seated with the people that I was introduced in the beginning, which was quite alright because it was actually fun, they kept shooting questions at me and we exchanged stories and I learned a lot from those people. When Peer told me about this "dinner" he mentioned that I would have to tell people something about Iceland but little did I know that I would have to step up to a podium and give a speech into a microphone, I started off by talking about myself and my family, then just gave them some facts about Iceland then when I ran out of things to say, I said what every great speaker says when he´s out of words:"Any Questions?" From there on people shot right and left and my "speech" wound up being about 15-20 minutes, and I´m pretty sure I made at least one fact up, that´s what nerves do to you. After I gave my "speech," the youngest girl in the room at the age of 24, Helena which is from Sverige talked a little bit and then Jon spoke, he also is from Sverige and in his 20´s so I was not the only one born after 1975. Like I said about the age average of this "Society" when it came to the "dinner" that the members had made, it was of course the kind of food the mostly elderly people eat so let´s just say that I did n´t eat very much. A couple of things that were kind of new to me but before everything started we stood up and saluted the flag and joined together in prayer, which I felt strange doing but as an American this their bread and butter. After the event had finished people came up to me and thanked me for coming and sharing my thoughts and experience and even a couple of them came up to me and told me that I just have meet their granddaughter, which is fine with me if they are cute, but blind dating not really something I´m keen on, but in the words of Andréa: You should go on blind dates just for the fun story out of it. Also because I´ve been single for a couple of months it couldn´t hurt.

This weekend is going to be pretty sweet! My roommate is out for the weekend and I don´t have any homework so I can begin a couple of my final projects and relax and hit the gym.

For now that´s all