Tournament Recap

Well, what an exciting weekend. Before we go on, id like to first congratulate The Torched Lane's very own Perry Crowell IV on a tremendous win on sunday. Like i said in my weekend preview, going undefeated in the elimination rounds would prove to be a huge advantage.

Secondly, id also like to congratulate Tanner Spacey on his very first scratch title. Not only did he win 3 matches on his way to doing so, he went through Perry, John Jordan, AND Marshall Kent in the final. (Marshall was +405 !!) Tough competition to say the least. So big congratulations to you two.

Now on to the goods. We bowled on Kegel's Route 66 on saturday. A fairly demanding pattern. It wasnt extremly diffucult but at the same time not wide open. As with a lot of longer patterns, pretty much all the high rev players scored well. I myself did ok through qualifying, but fell apart completely in match play firing two 140-games en route (pun!) to a 20th place finish. One of the things that i noticed was i bowled on the same pair as both Marshall and Perry who were tearing it up. I found that watching them put up numbers while i was scrapping to get up to 200 really drained me mentally. Its hard to watch fellow bowlers, friends do well while you are left in their dust. In the match play same thing. Bowlers around me putting up some number while im 149 out of the gate and now totally out of it. I did find the will to pick myself up and pull it together to find a line. I even threw it well the last game even though i ended with another 140. All in all, an overall flustering day and im still having a hard time taking anything good away from it.

Sunday was bowled on Athens. This is a medium pattern. Let me tell you, it was tough. Not impossible, but much tougher than saturday. Fortunately, i had a bye through qualifying, which i found to help me relax and just try to get comfortable out o the lanes. A lot was riding on my finish. On top of the $1000 first place check, it was also triple points, and there was still bowler of the year stuff. After an up and down qualifying and match play, i somehow found myself in the finals. Like last year, i had 2 losses and my opponent (Perry) had zero losses. Unlike last year however, i was able to at least keep it close, starting front 7. Somehow, on a pattern where shooting 200 would win matches, i find myself having to shoot 264 JUST TO GIVE MYSELF A CHANCE. Perry needed a strike and good count to lock it up and like the beast man that he is, shredded the rack and spared for a 4 pin victory. I am not going to lie, i was a little fried. I was visibally angry and didnt want anything to do with anyone for a few minutes. I ended up just taking a few minutes to calm myself down, go up to Perry and give him his well deserved hand shake and a hug.

Kids, you can cry, whine, bitch all you want, but give props where props are due. If you get beat, you shake your opponents hand and tell him or her good game. They won and you didnt. Get over it. You make yourself look like an idiot and a baby when you dont do this. Especially when there are a lot of people around, or in this case, cameras. I was mad, so i wanted to cool down before confronting Perry. Afterwords i thought i shouldve been the first one to congratulate him. Something i need to work on.

Either way, a good weekend for me and a great weekend for The Torched Lane. I will probably not have another entry for a few days, but stay tuned as we will (hopefully) get to hear what the great IV has to say.

-Cameron