Did I Blow It?

Last night we were in first place by 5.5 points bowling against my friend Mike who has thrown 8 three hundred games and three 800 series in just about 3 years. He has been one of the city's best bowlers for the past two years. I have been friends with Mikey ever since 6th grade. He and I have bowled tournaments and leagues together for so many years now. I am glad that he is a great bowler now. He was always pretty decent like me, but I was just a bit better than him and of course my funk slump came into play and even then he wasn't that much better than me until these past few years. He went to college for a while and really wasn't bowling much so that is why he never really got great.
With the way that Josh has been bowling I figured if we were to take first place for the quarter and earn a spot in the finals we would have to rely on the girls (Aunt Barbara and my wife Sheri to win the most of the points). Why did I not include myself in the list of earnable points for the night? Because I was in fact paired to bowl against Mike, and did you not read his resume above. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that he basically averages 220! There is a total of 30 points possible on the night and we simply needed to win 12.5 or something like that to hold off Mike's team.
The first game started out great we won 4 of the total 6 points available on that game. I won my point and Barbara won her point and we had the higher team score which was 2 points. I bowled a 227 against a struggling Mike who finished strong with a 202. The next game wasn't that great! Sheri was the only one to take a point out of 6 available. Mikey started the 2nd game with the first 9 strikes in a row against me so I didn't have a chance to beat him. At this point I am even rooting for him to shoot a 300. It wasn't meant to be and he tugged the 10th ball just a bit and shot a 277 against my 237. Yeah most nights when you shoot a 237 you are most likely to win that point. Not against Mike like I said! So out of 12 points available after game 2 we only had 5 of them.
The last game started out pretty good and everybody was winning on our team except Josh. I was only ahead of Mike by ten pins but I was throwing a pretty decent ball and just figured if I kept striking I would at least take 2 points out of the possible 5 against Mike. Sheri ended up tying her last game against her opponent and she won 3.5 points out of her possible 5. Barbara won her last game and took totals as well thus she won 4 out of her 5 points. Mikey shot a 246 his last game. I shot a 266 and beat Mike not only that game but series as well. He shot a 723 and I hit a 730! Pretty weird to shoot exactly the same series as the week before, but I was dang happy. I had beaten one of the city's best bowlers on one of 5 of the most important nights of a league! There are 4 positional rounds that earn a spot into the final (last night being one of them) and then you have finals! Without this win we wouldn't be in the finals unless we were to win the last quarter. It always loosens up a swing knowing that you have already stamped a place in the finals. Mikey's team had already won a quarter and thus they were already in the finals. Was what we bowled enough to win the 12.5 points that we needed? We lost the last games final score which I thought we absolutely needed. So we had Sheri's 3.5 points Barbara's 4 points and my 4 points which gave us 11.5 points! We did win that first game as a team and that gave us 2 points and gave us our victory 13.5 points! We took the 3rd quarter and earner ourselves a spot in the finals! Wahoo I didn't blow my good bowling either!
Another 730! I have now averaged just over 232 for the past 4 weeks and am feeling better and better. I beat one of the best bowlers around here last night when he shot a 723! I honestly think that is probably my first back to back 700 series since I started bowling! My average was up to 202 before last night and I imagine that it will probably move up another 2! I had two goals this year and they were to beat Josh (which I thought was going to be a lot easier that it was) and to get my average up to a 200. I am sure that I have the Josh goal in the bag, but there is still 10 more weeks of bowling to go. Anything can happen, but I am hoping to keep it going.
On January 20th Sheri had a chance to get her first 600 series. She has been bowling really good this year and I had hoped that she would get her first 600. She bowled a 220 her first game and fell slightly the second game hitting a 184. Thus she needed to get a 196 her last game. She knows that in order to get up in the high 190s to low 200s you will need to double up (that is getting two strikes in a row) and leaving no opens. Thus she needs to get a double and shoot all spares to get her 196. Well, it was the ninth frame and she hadn't doubled yet. She hadn't opened which was great, but she need to get them two strikes in a row yet. She asked for my advice. I knew she was throwing a good ball she just wasn't getting any breaks. I noticed one thing that might give her a bit more carry so I told her my advice. She stepped up in the 9 frame and missed! She got her spare and had one last shot to get a 600. She needed the first two strikes in the tenth frame to have a shot. She stepped up with the first ball in the tenth frame and smashed the pocket! Strike! The next ball was a bit light in the pocket but there was still some pins moving around and at last that final pin fell giving her that much needed double! She would however still need to get like 6 pins or something like that. I think she might have struck, but the fact was that she got her last 5 or 6 pins that she needed and hit a 604 series! I was so pound of her! With that 600 by Sheri and my 700 series last week we have all our team on the honor roll board! Pretty cool. We are probably the only team in that bowling establishment that have a mixed team (2 guys and 2 girls) on the honor roll board.
In order to get on the honor roll board you have to either shoot a 225 or higher as a woman or hit a 600 series. Barbara has not shot a 600, but she did get a 234 one week. Sheri obviously got her 604. Josh has been on the board for most of the year. As a man you have to shoot a 700 or have a score in one game higher than a 275. Josh did both of those things in the first 5 weeks of bowling. I finally hit my 730 and it is pretty cool having all of our team on the board! I am happy for us all, but hope that Josh doesn't get to down on himself for not bowling good. He did hit a 226 his first game and I thought he might be making a comeback from his last month of bowling, but his next two games sucked. I still think he is trying too hard and expects too much from himself. Keep up the desire to bowl good Josh and just have fun.