I'm still participating in both pool league and bowling league and I have some updates to share today!
Pool League:
Pool is still going well, our 8-ball team already qualified for the City Tournament later this year after winning the Big Money Tournament at the end of the 2023 summer session. In addition, I joined a 9-ball team last fall where we won playoffs and will be playing in the Big Money Tournament in a couple weekends.
The added practice has helped and as a result, I moved up to a 6 again in 8-ball. You may recall that this happened to me at the end of 2019, but I was unable to keep the higher rating. I believe part of that had to do with Covid, where we I stopped playing pool for months when everyone was forced to stay indoors. This time I feel a little bit more knowledgeable of the game and my shooting has been consistent enough lately, so we'll see if I can maintain it!
This will be the first time our Tuesday 8-ball team has ever had two skill level 6's on the roster at the same time. Pretty crazy!
Bowling League:
Last year I switched bowling leagues. I had been bowling for over a decade at the Bowlero Camino Seco on the east side of town since that's where IBMers had bowled for the longest time. Bowling on the east side had worked for me for so long because I would just go to the alley after going to the IBM office. But the last season was challenging for me since 1) I was working an odd schedule where I would go to bed very late on Thursday mornings and basically wake up right before bowling league and 2) I was working remotely, so I would have to drive through town during rush hour to the alley on the east side, so that would end up taking me a good 40 minutes. While I enjoyed bowling in the Thursday Turkeys league over there and had some of my best seasons there (over a 200 average in three years), it was getting tiring making the commute every Thursday.
In 2022, I had introduced some of my friends from pool league to try a summer bowling league at Fiesta Lanes on the west side of town with me. Fiesta Lanes is considerably closer to my house, about a 15-minute drive away at most. They enjoyed bowling so much that they decided to continue on for the 2022-23 season.
I felt like it was time for a change, so I decided to join my friends at Fiesta Lanes for the 2023-24 season. While it was sad to leave Bowlero where I had bowled for so many years, it was nice to be closer to home and I looked forward to bowling with my friends. At first, my average struggled and I started out in the low 180s, I wasn't able to string as many strikes together and I'd often leave splits. I argued that the lanes are oiled differently and it would take some time to learn how to bowl at this house.
This bowling league spans 36 weeks and there are four 9-week sessions. The first quarter, our team record was not very good and we ended 18-54. We didn't think much of the standings, since my friends were newer bowlers who are still learning and we were struggling to find a consistent group of bowlers who could bowl every week. This is a co-ed league were at least one member of each gender is required to bowl on a given night, and there'd often be nights where we couldn't find a female to bowl with us. And so came the second quarter when Susy joined the team. She instantly brought a high level of energy and positivity to the team and would show up just about every week to bowl. Members of the team were having fun since she joined and the consistency of having 4 bowlers every week was also helping. Soon we found ourselves quickly rising in the standings. When Susy joined in week 2, we were in 23rd place out of 40 teams and our record was 2-6. We would finish the season 58-14 and her presence definitely helped fuel our success!
I'm really proud of how successful this team has become in such a short while. We're now locked into Rolloffs for the final week of the season, where we'll have a chance to play for the prize fund. I'm also happy because I've seen my average go up over the quarter and I currently rest at a 196 at the moment. I feel like I've finally figured out how to bowl at this house. I no longer leave myself nasty splits and I even bowled a 277 game during the position round when our team won the quarter. I'm so glad I joined this league with my friends and I look forward to finishing out the season strong!
