"After the performance this morning, we knew it was either us or nobody for a medal. It was just time for us to rise to the occasion so the team didn't get shut out."
--Patrick Allen
After sweeping all the gold medals in the last two PABCON Championships and 25 out of 30 since 1997, it wasn't looking good for Men's Team USA this year. Mike Fagan was the only member to medal in the singles event that opened the competition on Monday, taking a bronze, and after the first squad of doubles teams bowled yesterday, no doubles team from the USA was in contention to medal. The only USA team remaining to bowl in the afternoon squad was the team of Patrick Allen and Walter Ray Williams Jr. And this didn't look particularly promising given the fact that Walter Ray had finished in 20th place in singles.
However, Williams Jr. began the six game set with a sizzling 298 and 278, and he and Patrick Allen continued on to obliterate the PABCON Championships doubles record and win the gold medal by almost 200 pins over the Canadian team of Dan "The Man" MacLelland and Michael Schmidt that took the silver medal. Williams shot 1456 and Allen shot 1461 for a combined total of 2917 and a combined average of 243 on a condition that saw many teams struggling. For example, the team of Chris Barnes and Bill O'Neill finished in 11th place and averaged 214 for their six game set.
By the way, Patrick Allen leads all bowlers halfway through All Events, Walter Ray Williams Jr. is fifth, Mike Fagan sixth, Chris Barnes tenth, Bill O'Neill eleventh, and Wes Malott is eighteenth. Canada's Dan MacLelland is in second, just eight pins behind Allen.
Today features trios action. Team USA's two trios teams consist of Barnes, Fagan, and O'Neill on one team and Malott, Williams, and Allen on the other.
While the regular PBA Tour may be on hiatus, some of its biggest stars are busy this week bowling for Men'sTeam USA in the PABCON Men's Championship in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Team USA is one of sixteen national teams competing in the five-player Team, Trios, Doubles, Singles, All-Events, and Masters events at the Pan American Bowling Confederation's Men's Championships. It probably comes as no surprise that Men's Team USA has won 25 out of a possible 30 gold medals since 1997, and should do well again this year with Walter Ray Williams Jr., Chris Barnes, Bill O'Neill, Patrick Allen, Michael Fagan, and Wes Malott making up the team.
Everybody practiceed last night on all the oil patterns, and the action officially begins today. Stay tuned to this blog for the results as they unfold.
Below is a video of Men's Team USA practicing on the PABCON lanes.
I was happy to see Brian Kretzer finally win a national title yesterday, but I was bored almost to death watching him do it. I attribute much of my boredom to the numerous errant shots and low scores brought on in large part by the ridiculously challenging dual pattern condition they put out for the entire tournament and the televised finals.
I admit that the idea appealed to me initially. Test the best bowlers on the planet by forcing them to adapt to two diametrically opposed oil patterns on the same pair and let the best of the best rise to the top of the heap. But not only did the single elimination match play format prevent this from happening, but, after watching the bowlers struggle inordinately all week and Kretzer and Allen almost fall on their faces yesterday, I think putting one oil pattern on one lane and a very different one on the other is madness.
You almost might as well force the bowlers to bowl facing backwards or standing on their heads on one lane and in their regular way on the other. The disparity between the release, angle, and ball speed the players must use from one lane to the other is just too great to bring the best out in them, and I think tournaments should be about bringing out the best in the best.
You bring out the best by putting out the same challenging but playable pattern on both lanes of a pair and forcing the players to make reasonable adjustments from one lane to the other, since no two lanes play exactly alike, and execute well to win. You don't do what we Xtra Frame subscribers saw all last week and what hapless ESPN viewers saw yesterday until a good many of them probably tuned to another channel right in the middle of the show.
Not unless you want to make a sport struggling to become popular and attract fans less popular and attractive than ever, and that way lies madness for a PBA Tour on the brink of collapse.
They didn't believe she could do it. Just as she failed to bowl particularly well in match play the year she became the first and only woman to earn exempt status on the men's tour, many figured that she'd falter this time around in match play of the spotlighted TOC against superstars like Chris Barnes, Pete Weber, and Wes Malott. And there was some reason to believe that she would. After all, she'd finished weaker than she started in the previous two match play rounds. Speculation was that as the lanes transitioned and opened up, the pressure built, and the big guns started firing away, she might well fall precipitously from grace as she moved left on the approach and struggled to hold pocket and carry those pesky 10-pins with her woman's game in the final round of match play.
But Kelly Kulick fooled them and put on a performance for the ages. It started out inauspiciously. She began the round with games of 174 and 172. All appeared to be lost But then she made a ball change and instantly caught fire, with the crowd behind her fanning the flames, with games of 223, 279, 277, 222, 236, and a beautiful 267 in the last game against Rhino Page. It was a joy watching her on Xtra Frame as she reeled off strike after strike on a tough condition, hearing the crowd cheering her on, and seeing the hugs and congratulations she received from the male pros after the round was over and she was seeded second in the TV finals. If she can bowl like she did last night, I truly believe that she could win the TOC and that this would be one of the biggest stories ever in professional bowling. I can't wait to watch tomorrow's finals live on ESPN at 10 AM PST!
The first match will feature Rhino Page bowling against "Major" Mika Koivuniemi. Page could have won last year's TOC against Patrick Allen with a nine count or tied for sudden death with an eight count and spare in the eleventh, but he inexplicably threw the ball wide and got an ugly four count to lose the match. The final score was 267 to 263. Now Page has a chance to redeem himself.
The winner of the first match will take on Kelly Kulick, and the winner of that match will face who else but the great Chris Barnes for the coveted title. Like I said, I can't wait to see this.
On a sad note, my man Tony Reyes went into the final position round game last night in second place and with a great opportunity to make the show after bowling so well for most of the week. But he came up short against Chris Barnes, losing 236 to 159, and fell to sixth place behind Pete Weber. It must have been awfully disappointing for him to get so close. But, he can return to San Bruno knowing that he gave it his all, that he hung in there awfully well with the best of the best, and with $4,600 of prize money weighing down his pockets. Not a bad week at all, Tony.
But win or lose tomorrow, it should turn out to be one of the greatest weeks in Kelly Kulick's life.
Below are the heart-stopping final frames of last year's TOC.
I'm watching the third qualifying round of the TOC. Tony Reyes has just bowled 300 and has moved up to third in the standings. I've bowled in a lot of tournaments in the San Francisco Bay Area in which Tony also bowled. I'd like to see him make the finals.
But one thing I notice as I watch the tournament is the large TOC banner over some of the lanes. It features photos of Chris Barnes, Patrick Allen, and Wes Malott. What's wrong with this picture? Nothing's really wrong with it. All three of these guys are outstanding bowlers, and Chris Barnes is arguably the best in the world at this time.
But where is Walter Ray Williams? A TOC banner without the winningest PBA bowler of them all is like a day without breakfast. Or a day without dinner. Take your pick. Walter Ray, the champion's champion, belongs on that banner more than anyone. It galls me that the PBA is so hung up on youth and flashiness! I guess they think they need to be in order to attract the largest possible audience. But I'm part of the audience too. I respect bowling tradition and greatness at least as much as I like to watch the young lions of the game. Why can't the PBA do a better job of honoring both? Why do the older champions, including the greatest of them all, get kicked aside even when they're still very competitive?
If you love bowling like I do and you have Xtra Frame, you find your eyes glued to your computer monitor, especially when live match play is in progress. So, it was with great reluctance that I left to attend a party last night with my wife and miss the exciting action that took place in the men's Round of 8 and the women's semifinal match play.
However, I did get home and tune in just in time to see Stafanie Nation finish with nine strikes in a row to defeat Shannon Pluhowsky 259-244 in the seventh and final game of their great match after Pluhowsky began by winning the first three games and appeared to have the match all but locked up. That just goes to reinforce the trite but true saying, "It ain't over till it's over." I try to remember that whenever I'm bowling in competition and my opposition has a big lead. I keep on trying.
I was disappointed that PJ Haggerty lost to Steve Weber in the Round of 16, and I wish Jason Belmonte had made it to the TV finals instead of losing to Sean Rash in the Round of 8, but the men's and women's field for Sunday's ESPN's live telecast looks like a solid one with Sean Rash facing Mike Machuga, and Anthony LaCaze taking on Mike Wolfe in the men's semifinal matches, and Lynda Barnes matching up with Stefanie Nation in the women's final.
I have a few comments about what I observed yesterday watching match play on Xtra Frame.
First of all, I'm very impressed by the way Sean Rash is throwing the ball. He generates so much speed and turnl, but he's controlling it extremely well on the demanding condition they put out this week for the Anthony Memorial. Xtra Frame commentator Jeff Mark said that some people may not like Rash on the lanes where he can act like a bit of a jerk with his super-competitive demeanor and frequent balks on the approach, but he's a very nice guy off the lanes and recently organized and hosted a fundraising "Bowl for Wishes" Super Regional in Wichita Kansas.
Second, Xtra Frame takes questions from viewers while matches are underway, and one viewer wrote in with a question that's often occurred to me: When the oil on the lanes breaks down and the balls hook as much as they have in Dublin, why do bowlers keep moving so deep inside and throwing such big hooks with their relatively aggressive balls instead of switching to far less aggressive equipment and playing farther outside and straighter. "Bowling Doctor" Jeff Mark replied that as the bowlers keep throwing their oil sapping reactive resin balls and progressively move farther and farther inside as the oil breaks down, they create a V-shaped pattern where just about any kind of ball you throw in that area is going to hook too early and lose too much of its energy to carry well at the pocket if it even hits the pocket, which is hard to do when the ball hooks right off your hand. So the bowlers pretty much have to keep moving inside.
I still don't understand this oil pattern and oil breakdown business as well as I'd like, because I see people like Walter Ray Williams continue to play far to the right of the other bowlers even after the lanes have gotten very dry, and I've seen him score very well doing this, making the Round of 28 this week where he lost to a blistering hot Patrick Allen in six games. I guess guys like Walter Ray tend to play outside the V-shaped oil burnout pattern that the other players create, and he keeps his ball more controllable with his end-over-end roll. But I still wonder if the best way to bowl on really dry lanes is to keep moving inside even as far as having to stand in front of the ball return and take a three step approach and/or loft the ball five or ten feet out onto the lane, or if one wouldn't be better off using some combination of equipment, speed, and release that allows one to stay further outside and play straighter with a more controllable ball reaction.
Jeff Mark also commented that, as a former Ebonite ball rep, he used to work with Walter Ray and try to get him to use equipment with more exotic layouts, but Walter liked to have a "certain look" with his ball and preferred to stick to the simpler, more basic layouts that consistently gave him that look. Given his incredible success, I wonder if simpler isn't generally better than the widespread push to increasing technical complexity in bowling equipment. Or would guys like Walter Ray do even better if they listened to the ball reps and tried more complex combinations of coverstocks and layouts?
Finally, someone asked about the difference between European and American bowlers, and Jeff Mark replied that he thought European bowlers tended to be much more sound in their fundamentals and especially their spare shooting because they grow up on more demanding lane conditions and learn to make their spares and grind it out with solid fundamentals instead of relying as much on power and being as sloppy in their execution and spare shooting as American bowlers even at the professional level tend to do and be.
I thought this was a very interesting observation that supports my belief that bowling centers in this country need to start putting out more difficult conditions , especially for their junior bowlers, and encourage them to become better in their fundamentals. I, for one, would love to see more difficult house shots such as the Red, White, and Blue patterns of the Pepsi tournament that aired last week and, of course, the animal patterns of the PBA Experience leagues. But I can understand why bowling centers would be reluctant to do this. They're afraid they'd lose business to the centers that keep their conditions easy and their scoring inflated.
