Kegler's Corner: Jeff Miller 300

Jeff Miller705

Stan Pratnicki690

Jeremy Bloom688

Ken Thornton669

3,467 total pins

Last week’s ten-pin league action was hot and heavy up on the Heights at Hood River’s Orchard Lanes. Excellent scoring is flourishing. Our Team of the Week is packed with talented bowlers.

After a bad first game, The Dalles All-Star Jeff Miller demonstrated just how talented he was by making a perfect adjustment in the high powered Wednesday night Fraternal league. His big move was a simple ball change. Keep this in mind folks, all he did was switch to a Storm Phase 3 ball and after a poor 160 start he proceeded to rack up 19 straight strikes! We’ll say it again, that was 19 strikes in a row which is absolutely amazing and it included a perfect 300 in his second game. That 300 is already his second of this young season and he now has more than 20 in his career on the lanes. Well, what else can we say, he’s simply a heck of a bowler.

Young Levi Phelps went a bit better and topped everybody in the three game series department last week with a cool scratch 715. Ah, these kids, it’s great to be young. They can easily accomplish a key part of being successful in the modern bowling game. And that is speed. The high tech bowling balls of today practically hook right out of the box, often they hook a lot. So, if you can generate enough speed to get that hook monster down the lane so that it’s under control and hits the 1-3 pocket for us right-handers, then you’ve got a successful formula. When you put speed and hook together, the poor 3 pound, 6 ounce pins don’t stand a chance. And that was the case with Levi, also in the Fraternal, where he splashed the sticks in his last game to the tune of a beautiful scratch 260 which pushed him over the magical 700 mark with a nifty 715. Levi finished up 121 pins over his average which topped everybody last week.

Stan Pratnicki’s high velocity sphere also busted up a bunch of sticks in the Fraternal where he notched big 268 and 244 games for a mighty fine 690 series. We’re not kidding about the mph that Stan imparts to his ball. It seems like it never touches the ground. Stan plays the lanes out around the first arrow and when that missile of his hits the sticks, the pins literally explode. You’ve never heard such a sound, it’s like an M-50 on Independence Day!

Mr. Smooth, Jeremy Bloom, who has become a notorious strike machine, garners a Fab Five spot this week. As he usually does, Jeremy put the sticks to sleep with his sneaky, soft, down the middle style that culminated in a scratch 265 game and 688 set in the Fraternal.

And we’re beginning to think Ken Thornton enjoys basking in the limelight as he is now getting lots of ink week in and week out. And why not, he’s an excellent bowler who has found mid-season form already. He anchors our elite fivesome after leading the Monday night Industrial with a 257 game and 669 series. And not only that, with just one week left in the first round of the league, Ken led his first place Collins Aerospace trio to a 20-5 point shellacking of the second place OL‘7-10 team. Collins now has an almost insurmountable 22 point lead.

Get off that sofa and come on up and watch the hot-shot Fraternal league as it features a position round on its last night next week. This format pits the second place team against the first place team, fourth against third and so on. It gives those in contention a final, kind of like second chance at winning the round.

Right now Electronics Assemblers, anchored by 216 average, big hook specialist Bill Pullum has a slim three point lead in first over The 3 Pendejos, anchored by the notorious Stan Pratnicki; Hood River Supply, anchored by 212 average John Worth is in third just 7 points back; Levi Phelps’ MWB, anchored by 213 average Bill Whetstine is in fourth 8.5 points out; Mt. Hood Barbeque is 12.5 points away and Jeff Miller’s BB’s are 13.5 points short.

Theoretically, any of these teams could win round one. It’s going to be really fun to see how everyone handles the pressure. Let’s go bowling everybody!

LEAGUE HIGH SCRATCH GAMES AND SERIES

MONDAY NIGHT INDUSTRIAL:

Ken Thornton: 257,243, 669

Joey Sheirbon: 256

Dustin Ticknor: 254

Jeff Miller: 251

Mike Bosse: 244

TUESDAY NITE MIXED:

Shaiyan Wolf: 202

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON SENIOR COLTS AND FILLIES:

Dick Sherrell: 226,214,202, 642

Mike Parke: 265,200, 606

Mick Sherrell: 245

Tony Teschner: 209

Paul Dethman: 201

WEDNESDAY NIGHT FRATERNAL:

Levi Phelps: 260, 715

Jeff Miller: 300,243, 705

Stan Pratnicki: 268,244, 690

Jeremy Bloom: 265, 688

Bill Pullum: 276, 666

Josh Worth: 665

Bryan Mason: 256

John Riggleman:246

Bill Whetstine: 236

Ciena Brittle: 223, 211