Accepting Defeat

Today at the YBT Stop in Raleigh we bowled on the Final Advancers patterns from Junior Gold 2016. Going into today I was a tad bit nervous unlike usual because I have some bad history with this particular pattern. In the 2016 Junior Gold Championships, I bowled my way off of an automatic spot on Junior Team USA on this exact pattern. 

At Pleasant Valley lanes, the surface has lots of friction. I started off slow with 173 trying to make urethane work. Upon abandoning that strategy, I went to a trick in the bag of lofting it to get it over the fronts. I concluded the first block of qualifying with 1218, being the only person in the U20 boys plus. 

The first round of matchplay I bowled my best friend and brother, Steven Faulkner. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get lined up and the breaks didn’t go his way either. I shot 486 for the 2 game total to win. In the second round of matchplay I bowled another #StrikeBro, Kaan Kurt. The pair was NASTY for lack of a better word. I managed to shoot 400 on the nose and win. In the finals they were 3-4 boards tighter. I wrapped 10 a few times and lost due to a fortunate break in the favor of my opponent: 206-200.

Bowling is so frustrating to me sometimes. I understand the losing more than winning aspect. Just hard to accept defeat when I feel like I was the best guy in the building today. Oh well, on to the next one. 

Today the ball of choice was a Pin Up Truth Pearl.

-Kennon McFalls