Gregg Williams fired his third perfect game of the season and Jon Schalow slammed an 807 series to highlight Madison area bowling on Thursday,
Williams' 48th career 300 came in a 734 series in the Prairie Lanes Classic League. Williams also has three 800 series this season, with two of the 800s and two of the 300s coming in the Madison Area Scratch Tour tournament at Badger Bowl on Sept. 9.
Schalow chained games of 298, 266 and 243 in the Badger Bowl Badger League.
Bill Hust also fell a shot shy of perfection, rolling a 299 game in a 662 series in the Ten Pin Alley Thunder League.
Other men's series of 750 or higher on Thursday were 780 by Dan Ripp in the Dream Lanes Suburban Atlas League, 772 by Matt Riege and 750 by Dave Lehr in the Prairie Classic, 768 by Brian Hrabovsky in the Ten Pin Thunder, and 767 by Marc Peters in the Prairie Groundhog League.
Sue Brown led women's scoring on Thursday with a 635 in the Spartan Bowl Waubesa Mixers League.
Cathy Goodweiler was next with a 622 in the Bowl-A-Vard Lanes OM Fine Products League.
New Madisonian Derek Eoff topped the opening night of the Ten Pin Alley Bullseye Masters League with a 703, followed by Jacob Thomas with 675, Mike Hoffman 655, Chris Pollentier 652, Larry VanNatta 632, Chris Jackson 626 and Dave Rasmussen 625.
The first round of the 10-team league (one team needs two bowlers if anyone is interested) is being contested on the Team USA Beijing pattern, a high volume (26.65 mL) short (35 feet) pattern that proved tricky on Thursday night.
For those who entered Storm's GuessTheScore contest based on my Bullseye Masters score, I struggled to a 607 (204-180-223) on Thursday night.
We bowled on lanes 1-2 and I ran into two difficulties — haphazard lane transition due to the high oil volume and people playing a variety of lines and the odd wall next to lane 1, which is flush with the gutter and sticks out beyond the foul line by a few inches.
The latter resulted in a pair of 10-pin misses due to a feeling akin to claustrophobia that is really going to be fun for me later this season when we compete on pairs where we play deeper on the lane. I also missed a 6-10 and a 4-7 on a night where my concentration was less than stellar, which pretty much describes every week of league for me!
The former resulted in a lot of confusion in my initial experience on Beijing. I started strong with a Storm TROPICAL BREEZE straight up just outside 5-board — ring 10-pin, X, solid 8-pin, 5-bagger — but once the carrydown began to impact my reaction I struggled.
I went through trying to swing a LUCID from just right of 10-board to going straight around 5-board with a FIRE ROAD before settling on somewhere in between with a pin-in-the-palm TROPICAL HEAT PURPLE/BLACK.
Other than two more solid 8-pins I did settle in as the night progressed and I'd anticipate better scores now that I have some semblance of a plan of attack, but shooting any big numbers probably will happen only when my team gets paired up with a team that will have at least 7 guys playing right of 5-board.
The winner of the first week's #GuessTheScore was @Pinbuster300.
A reminder that I will miss league next Thursday as I will be on vacation in Las Vegas. Darn.
Source: scores reported to Wisconsin State Journal.
