April 10, 2025
By Paul Bodnar
Josh Sweet bowling in the Thursday American league at the Barbecue rolled his 4th 800 series of the season as he rolled an 805 on games of 277, 259 & 269. The majority of bowlers do not roll more than one 800 triple in any given season with the majority of bowlers never having bowling one. To roll four in one season is quite the feat. I would suspect that Matt Brownell and Tim McCart may have had that many 800 series in one season, as they are two of the finest bowlers from the Barbecue. Congratulations Josh on a tremendous year of bowling. A season to remember for sure.
The Barbecue was the setting for another four-game sweeper this past Saturday. A full house competed in the event which saw Ryan Russo as the leader of the qualifying with a handicap score of 1012. This score included Ryan's first 300 game! Qualifying 2nd was Zach Mongeon with 1011; Phil Gordon was 3rd with 998; 4th was Chris Karch with a 989. 5th place was Ted Hill III with 945 winning $105. Jacob Bassonette's 36 was good for 6th place and earned him $95. In 7th place was Rich Snyder with a 932 for $85 and in 8th place was veteran Don Amyot with 931 good for $80. In the roll-offs, Ryan Russo defeated Chris Karch 252 to 212 earning Chris $140. Phil Gordon defeated Zach Mongeon 248-203 earning Zach $140. In the final match Ryan Russo bowled a 270 defeated Phil Gordon who rolled a 232. Ryan earned $500 for the win while Phil took $245 for second place. This tournament is drawing bowlers from all over the region which is a testament that bowling is still alive and bowlers want to compete in tournaments. This tournament was full within 35 minutes of it being announced. You never hear of anything like that much anymore. Way to go to the staff of the Barbecue and to Tom & Melissa Mongeon, Dave Rice and Preston Oakes for assisting in making this tournament a success.
Don't forget to sign up for the Troy Association City Tournament that will be held at Hometown Lanes in Mechanicville and Hilltop Bowl in Spiegeltown. Entries are available at the Barbecue and on line. Each event is $25 per bowler with All events being $5. There is a change to the way the brackets will be handled this year. Bowlers over 210 average will be allowed only in the scratch brackets, not the handicap one. There has been many bowlers expressing an interest in bowling in the handicap brackets but when they realize they may be paired up against a bowler with a 220 average or higher, they decide not to enter. Those bowlers do not believe they are able to compete against a scratch bowler even with their handicap. We are experimenting with it for this one tournament to see how well it is or not received. Some say there will be fewer bowlers entering the brackets which are a side to the actual tournament.
Did you have an opportunity to watch the Pro Bowlers Tour on Saturday? They had the one-handed bowlers versus the two-handed bowlers compete in a Baker tournament whereas five bowlers would bowl two frames each to determine the team's score. It was a best of four to determine the winners. On the one-handed bowlers' team were Graham Fach, EJ Tackett, Jacob Butturff, Andrew Anderson and Kris Prather. The two-handed team had Chris Via, Kyle Troup, Jason Belmonte, Matt Ogle and Tim Foy. The 1st game had the one handers rolling a game of 216 to defeat the two handers who had a 182 game. The 2nd game had the one handers rolling a huge 269 to 181 for the two handers. In the 3rd game, which was a do or die one, the two handers rolled a great 2578 to defeat the one handers who had a 193. This set up the 4th game which was a blowout by the one handers 213-127. What was new to the pro tour was the fact this event was rolled on string pins. There has been much discussion on whether or not this is "real" bowling or not. The same thing for the two-handed bowlers, are they for real or not. It was brought up on the telecast that some of the reasons to go to string machines was the lack of qualified mechanics to repair the typical AMF or Brunswick machines as well as the availability of parts for those machines. The cost of electricity as the old machines have numerous motors which run the machines while the string machines have fewer moving parts resulting in using less electricity. All of this results in a savings for the proprietor which in turn hopes centers can remain open instead of closing down. It was discussed on the telecast that the string pins require more precision than free fall machines. It was apparent by watching the matches that the higher rev players did not have pins flying all across the pin deck taking out a pin or two on what were not solid pocket hits. It did show that the solid pocket hits carried very well for the most part, but there were the usual 7 or 10 pin as well as a 4 pin or 9 pin leave. The one-handed team averaged 222.75 for the four games while the two-handed team averaged 186.75. Is this type of scoring going to be indicative of how you and your teammates score on them? I do not know. Randy Pedersen did mention that he believes both the string pins and the two handed bowling is good for the sport of bowling to keep it alive. I think what we learned by watching this show was that bowling is continuing to evolve with changes to equipment, style of delivering the bowling ball and how the lanes are conditioned to impact the score ability of a pair of lanes over the course of a long season as well as in a particular tournament.
In my grandson's Saturday morning league, several of the bowlers in his league were talking about bowling on the string pins at East Greenbush Bowling Center which so far are the only center in the capital region to have them. The one bowler had said that he bowled on them and liked how the pins fell and how he bowled. Another one said that he didn't like the lanes nor did one of his family members who bowls there. In fact, he said that a number of teams were not going to bowl in that particular center next season as they had seen a drop in their average and were not having much fun. It was also discussed that Del Lanes which is owned by the same people was going to be changing over to string pins before the upcoming season. Whether or not this youth bowler had his facts straight, I don't know, but it would seem plausible since it is a sister center to the one which has the string machines. No doubt about it, the game we love is changing. As I have written in the past, there were many bowlers in the past who said they weren't going to compete in the sport with urethane balls. Then when the synthetic lanes started to be used in some centers, bowlers didn't like that and said it was destroying the game. Then the reactive resin balls came into the forefront with many saying they weren't going to bowl with them as it was "cheating" to do so. Some walked away, some had little to no success with the balls, but others all of a sudden could hook the ball out the window and you started seeing huge averages and series being thrown week after week. I know there has been a dramatic drop in the number of sanctioned bowlers over the past 25 to 35 years but am not sure if it is only caused by the change in the equipment or other factors. Just this past week I was reading about the greater Buffalo association which had 26 centers back in the early 80's to now having exactly one half or 13 centers left. I can't believe that all of those centers closed simply due to the change in equipment. There are many factors involved in the decline in the number of bowlers and centers. Just take a look around the capital region and you will see how many centers are left compared to what there used to be. Back in the 1960-1961 bowling season, the Troy Association had over 7,000 sanctioned bowlers. Today we have less than 3,000. How many will we have 10, 20 or even 65 years from now? Let's keep bowling fun and alive in our area.