Hello everyone! Finally got the third and final league started, the Saturday Night Mixed league. It's a 4 person, mixed gender league, 24 teams, fills the entire house.

As some of you know, or may have experienced first hand, I coached high school bowling from 2014-2020. During that time, I developed a few truisms, that I would eagerly repeat at any opportunity. Probably the phrase that received the most use, and therefore received with the most disdain, was "Spares make scores!" Truer than true, right as rain, you have to make your spares, especially the easy ones, if you expect to score well in bowling. Nothing destroys the momentum of a good game quite like an open frame.

Why do I bring this up, you ask? Because on Saturday night, I couldn't make a single pin spare to save my life! Missed the easy ones, made every other spare combination that I left. Zero for 3 on 7 pins, and 2 out of 5 on 10 pins. Absolutely horrendous. I shot a 592 series, which obviously would have been a much higher total if I had just been able to convert single pin spares. I'm not going to bore you with the details of this set. I had games of 201, 186, and 205. Add in the pins that were missed on those single pin spares, and it could have been a decent series.

So, what's next, you ask? First, I have to rethink my spare strategy. I've been using a Motiv Tank Rampage for my spare ball for approximately the last year, and loved it at the beginning. However, at the beginning of this current season, the mid-lanes and back end of the lanes have been so dry that I'm seeing too much motion from the Tank. I don't throw hard enough to overcome the extra friction, so I miss to the inside of 10 pins. That usually results in an over-correction on the next one, and it misses wide right. Same pattern on 7 pins as well. My conclusion at this point is to go back to shooting corner pins with a plastic ball, and see if that helps. Secondly, I have to practice more. This seems to be a recurring theme, but I'm not going to see improvement by just wishing it to happen. I'm going to experiment with different angles, especially concerning corner pins, and try to gain some consistency.

Thanks for reading this far, and contributing to my therapy. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at [email protected]. I'll respond personally if you wish, or address it in my next post. Until then:

• Practice spares more than you practice strike shots.

• Have a pre-planned strategy for making your spares, no guessing on the approach!

• Don't be afraid to laugh at yourself a little, this is just a game.

Craig