Day 3 – Men’s Doubles
Day 2 was an off day for the Men as we watched the Women compete in the singles competition. Wednesday was scheduled 6 games of qualifying for Men’s doubles on the 39ft Seoul pattern
As you can see on the graph, this pattern has much more shape to it than the previous pattern, 33 ft Sydney, and as expected the scoring pace was higher. This pattern also allows for multiple angles and since Sunset Station has quite a bit of defined hook on the outside part of the lane, many players were able to still play the far outside part of the lane. Which is not usually the norm on 39 feet. I teamed up with John Janawicz (JJ) for the doubles event and both of us did precisely that to start.
On the fresh I threw the smoothest reactive ball I have, the Prodigy, while JJ threw an old urethane Sting Ray/C (never thought I’d see another one of the those!) and we combined for a huge 536 the first game. It was great to get on a good pair game one and really take advantage of it. We hit some hiccups along the way with transition but we stamped our ticket into the finals the last two games when we both moved to the center part of the lane and both switched to an IQ Tour. My full arsenal for the World Championships is pictured here
JJ and I bowled really well as a team throughout the block. Playing the same part of the lane, making moves together and getting a lot of good quality feedback from each other. We ended up qualifying 2nd for the medal round roll off.
The medal round is set up like a bracket 1 v 4 & 2 v 3. The way the medal round played out last night found to be very ironic. Finland qualified 1 & 4 and the USA qualified 2 & 3. We ended up having to take on our teammates Chris Barnes & John Szczerbinski. JJ bowled an amazing game of 268 as I unfortunately struggled. It was a tough game for me as I was having issues with my footing and didn’t get comfortable until the middle of the game. The match was still close down the stretch. A couple stone of 9-pins from me in the 8th & 10th on good shots didn’t help our cause. It was not to be and we were defeated 472-458. We had to settle for bronze.
As disappointed as I was, I had to turn right back around and root for my teammates in the Gold medal match. Chris & John put on quite a display shooting 279 & 290 respectively to defeat Osku Palermaa & Pasi Uotila to take home the Gold. As much as I wanted to wear the gold it felt good that our team succeeded in the event. You can check out the full wrap up on BowlTV here
Thursday is an off day for the men while the women take the lanes in the doubles. Friday will start the trios portion of the event.
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