Well I had a decent outing this year in the state bowling tourney! Team series I shot a 610 - 203, 223, 184 (fouled in the 10th while on a four bagger of the 3rd game). Doubles I shot a 505 - 184, 200, 121 (completely lost my line on the lanes, should have went to my spare ball). Singles I shot a 577 - 213, 223, 141 (again my line just disappeared the last game)... I'm quite pleased with the 188 average I put up over the competition. Though I am disappointed with my third game performances in singles & doubles. Lots of splits, and obviously not the correct adjustments... The 223 I shot in singles, all strikes and opens as I couldn't pick up any of my leaves. Rattled off 8 in-a-row, but not a single spare pickup. Definitely something I will be working on this summer. Especially with my 3 free games per day for joining a summer league with AMF ! So with my performance and the rest of my teams performance I will cash in three events; team, singles, and all-events. Next year won't be so easy as I'll lose most of the handicap I had this year with my average going up to a 172. That just means I have to bowl better !

I was dissapointed with my showing this year as I won't cash at all after making the top 50 in doubles two years ago, 65th last year and cashing in all events last year as well (with a 190+ scratch average). I went in to this tournament with a lot of confidence as I finished the league season two weeks ago bowling well and with my highest season average ever (180). With my tournament entering average as 172 (last season's league finish) I figured that I'd be able to take advantage of the handicap pins - that was not to be, my scores were:
Teams: 191, 198, 198 = 587 scratch, 716 hdcp.
Doubles: 129, 158, 171 = 458 scratch, 587 hdcp. (ouch)
Singles: 157, 201, 178 = 536 scratch, 665 hdcp.
All Events: 1581 scratch, 1968 hdcp.
I was pleased with the teams score but then just couldn't do anything at all in the doubles squad and didn't bowl well (although at least not embarrassingly!) in the singles. We bowled on fresh oil each squad but there was a huge difference between the conditions in the two houses. Northglenn was so much drier with way more backend and I just struggled to adjust. Anyway, lesson learned is to make faster adjustments on drier lanes.