One of the nice things we get to do besides Bowl, is to do a little site seeing. Sure, Bowling is what we are there for. I want them to remember more than bowling. I want them to tell stories of their life and why bowling is the main piece behind it all.

Our travel begins Thursday the 19th at 2 A.M. Central time. Better believe I was in bed early before doing this! We get to the airport safely and board our flight out of Dallas which takes off at 7:15AM. Now time for myself to get a solid nap on the plane! Before I knew it, we touched down at Reagan National Airport. After the long journey walk to get the vans for the weekend, it was off to the White House. We were hoping to just find a quick spot right on the street, near the Washington Monument and make are way around from there. Well parking took about 30 minutes to even find something. We ended up finding a small parking garage a few blocks away from the White House.

Checked out what we could in the time frame we had, and now it was off to our surprise spot for the weekend. While we were traveling to our place of stay, which the girls had no clue where we were truly staying, they thought it was just another hotel. As we pull up to this 4700 Sq. Ft. Beach House, we told the girls that we were meeting another team for dinner at this house. Even though no one was there, we still had most of them fooled. As we opened the doors and let them know that this was their home for the weekend, they all went running to check out everything. 7 Bedrooms, 4.5 Baths, and of course my favorite part, a ping pong table. The girls of course, Loved the Hot Tub! It may have been 40 degrees outside but when you are sitting in 100 degrees of heated water, that outside air becomes irrelevant. Now time for some shut eye to get ready for the main reason of why we are there, Bowling.

The pattern we are bowling on is the same pattern that we bowled on in New York. 42' with a 2.5:1 ratio. Pretty flat but still score-able in the track area. The only thing different was the oil and machine that was being used. The new Kegel Flex with the Fire and Ice combo. The look in the track area was fine but shot making was not consistent by any means. Move a board left and then we pitch it 5 boards to far to the right. That is how Friday and Saturday went for us. No matter what we said or tried or anything you may think of seemed to just not go as planned. We managed a 5-7 record after those two days of competition. Yeah! Not good!

Sunday became a different story than what played out Friday and Saturday. Shot making was on point and made my job much easier. When we are able to all move at the same time, the rest is history. Our first match was against LIU and it boiled down to a game 7, we won 4.5-2.5. Our girls bounce back very well after tieing game 5 due to needing 9 or more on the 3rd and final shot in the tenth, she ended up hitting the pocket leaving the 7-10 split(209-209). They stayed in the moment of just making shots, which is all a coach can ask for. After going to 7 games our first match, we managed to clean sweep the next 2 matches, 4-0. An 8-7 record is not the worst by any means. It sure could have been better but also could have been worse. Now we get to load up the vans, Again, and head back to the airport to catch our 8PM flight.

Once we arrive in Dallas, we head off to grab the sprinter van. The downfall here, is that, Dallas is actually colder than Delaware/Maryland. Dallas got a dusting of snow, a Dusting! I thought Texas drivers were bad in the rain but then a little snow comes into play, WAY WORSE. Traveling back to Nacogdoches, we ran into a 2 car accident. We were about 20 cars back of the accident, so it had to of happened a few minutes before we got to that spot. After sitting for 1 hour with no movement, at 1 in the morning, we finally get back to Nac around 3:30AM.

The morale of this trip is to make sure you have the patience to deal with anything. Whether it is trying to find a parking spot, to bad shot executions, or even an accident on a 1 lane ramp. Enjoy the ride and always hope for the best. Now time to get some practice in since we turn right back around for a tournament in Houston. Remember to enjoy the game of bowling and as always Practice, Practice, Practice.

Steve Lemke Bowling.com SFA NCAA Coach