I will try to get a blog out during the week on how I felt a tournament went and played for us. This past weekend we went to the All State Sugar Bowl Collegiate Invitational. We bowl on Friday, Saturday and Sunday during this 3-day competition. The pattern that we bowled on was 38 feet at a volume of 21.6mL. SFA has a fairly young team this year with 4 Freshman, 2 Sophomores, 1 Junior, and 1 Senior. Now on to the good stuff!

We felt it necessary to bowl the practice session on Thursday to get a feel of the lanes and how the pattern would play out. The best look we found, was on the outside part of the lane. Depending on the girl, a 12 to 7 or straight up 7 seemed to work best. Also found that using lower end equipment like Storm Punch Out or Storm Hy-Road Pearls seemed to be working for most all the girls. A few Storm IQ's were being thrown as well.

Friday competition involved 5, 5 game Baker Matches and Total pin fall also comes into play for the tournament. We won the first two matches shooting sets of 1029 and 1008. Then we ran into some issues with how the pattern transitioned. We started to get some over/under reactions on outside of the lane and we were forced to move further inside then we had planned on doing. After making this move, shot making faltered some. We shot 900 and then 924 losing 1 of those 2 matches. In those matches we were around 3rd arrow playing out to 8-10 for a break point. We game planned later than night in case we ran into this situation on Saturday. Our plan was to move even further left than were we had ended up playing. SFA’s 4,817 total pins on the day puts the Ladyjacks third, 133 behind second-place Sam Houston in the team standings. Fourth-ranked Vanderbilt leads with a perfect 4-0 record after day one with 5,011 total pins.

On to Saturday! Saturday is 5 Team Games, basically just like league play. We started with the same game plan as practice and also like Friday. Using weaker equipment on the outside part of the lane. We shot sets of 1074, 1054, 1087, 1049 and 940. For some reason we hardly moved at all during the day. Our 3rd Set of 1087, we were forced to move left but after that we were able to move back to the right. This pattern truly broke down to how teams ended up playing the pattern. If they played outside, the shot stayed outside. Those that played further left than the track area forced the bowlers to either adjust further left of where they played or move outside to 2-3 board. SFA improved to 8-1 over the first two days of the tournament and overtook Sam Houston State for the team lead, sitting at 10,021 total pins and a 200.4 average per game.

Sunday was Best of 7 Baker Match play. Entering the day in first place, the Ladyjacks drew rival Sam Houston State in the opening round of the championship bracket. SFA swept the Bearkats in the best-of-seven bracket, winning 223-171, 256-212, 235-189 and 257-180, earning a bye to the championship match. Once we started bowling in the championship match, nerves got the best of us. The Ladyjacks saw a familiar foe in the finals as Sam Houston defeated Vanderbilt 4-2 to earn a rematch with SFA. After dropping the opening game 199-169, the Ladyjacks responded to win the next three, defeating the Bearkats 190-183, 252-181 and 195-182. But SFA couldn't close the deal as Sam Houston rallied to win the next three games 184-176, 220-194 and 245-180 to capture the team title in New Orleans. I will definitely say that nerves got the best of us. Forcing shots to work instead of just allowing the body to make the shot.

Our first tournament went better than I had anticipated and I am excited to see what the future brings for our young talented team. Our next tournament will be in North Brunswick, NJ. Until then Practice Practice Practice!

Steve Lemke Bowling.com SFA NCAA Coach