Chris Huff is the bowler of the week. Chris found Hood River’s friendly Orchard Lanes to his liking last week as he rolled a cool 651 three game series in the Industrial league to lead his Randy’s Painting team to a 17-8 win over Hood River Supply. His buddy and team sponsor Randy Nieto chipped in a nice 639 set in the match, but Chris was definitely the straw that stirred the drink on this night as he topped his average by 126 pins, the most by all bowlers in all leagues at Orchard Lanes last week. This was Chris’ first 600 series of the season, and he did it big, beating his previous high by 112 sticks.
Other highlights in the Industrial saw team MTS move into first place as they deflated Collins Aerospace 16-9. Steve Byers keyed the win with a timely 611 series. This is important because the Industrial league has just one week to go in its first round. Three teams are bunched at the top, separated by just one point: MTS with 131 points, Mid-Columbia Diesel with 130.5 points and Pat’s Pro Shop with 130 points. One of these teams will most likely prevail and take the first round. Here are their upcoming matches: MTS bowls Lustre Kings, Mid-Columbia Diesel bowls Hood River Supply and Pat’s Pro Shop bowls Kingpinz. Are there any clearcut advantages? Sure, Pat’s Pro Shop is a powerful trio that has a 599-team average, just one pin shy of 200 per man. That’s pretty darn good, the best in the league. They are definitely a formidable crew. But the handicap system built into the league format is the great equalizer, isn’t it? The Pro Shop boys will have to give 111 pins per game to their opponents. That’s a tall order to overcome, but MTS has to give a whopping 144 pins per game to their opponents while Mid-Columbia Diesel just has to give 66 pins per game to their opponents.
The big show in the Tuesday Nite Mixed league last week involved the match between titans, Hood River Supply and Ten Pinnies. Top notch anchormen Chad Mason and Mike Parke faced off in this match. Ten Pinnies all-star, fire balling Chad Mason still hasn’t cooled off much from his dizzying perfect 300 game effort in the previous week. He racked up a solid 691 series, which just edged the always hot, smooth Mike Parke, Supply’s legendary pin buster, whose lefty slants upended 677 sticks. But Chad’s efforts weren’t enough as Supply won the match 3-1 which moved them into a tie for first place. In the same session, team Nishi’s hit ‘em thin and watch ‘em spin specialist, Jeff Hasegawa, was even more on fire than the Liberty Mutual Emu as he spilled a truck load of firewood, rolling a classy 259 game and 626 series that boosted his foursome to a 3-1 win. The other notable match in the Mixed saw Mad Skilz take down front runner Take Ten 3-1 and here’s how that happened. In the first game of the set, the Skilz Bob Mason turned into The Hulk, tossing more strikes than Carter’s got pills, notching a monster 277 game. That singular effort was 122 pins over his average!
Things are quite different in the Fraternal league where there is also one week to go in the first round. The format for the Fraternal calls for a position round on this last night. This means that the first-place team bowls the second-place squad, third place bowls fourth place and so on. That gives the second-place team a great chance to come from way behind to win the round. And that’s exactly what must happen this time as the first-place Mt. Hood Barbeque trio goes into this final match with a commanding 17-point lead over second-place Orchard Lanes. It’s interesting to note that these two teams bowled each other in the regular schedule last week and the BBQ boys charred the Lanes trio winning 21-4. Obviously these two teams were tied going into last week’s match. So, it’s now going to be mighty tough for Orchard Lanes to take the first round but it’s not impossible. The Orchard Lanes crew is loaded with big shooters; they sport an impressive 612 team average which means they average 204 pins per man. That’s a handful, 20 pins a man better than the underdog Barbequers, which is a lot to overcome but, hey, they grilled the big boys last week with ease, so you never know.
We’re nearly halfway into the first half of the County league and a little separation at the top is starting to show. The Gutter Girls and Tidy Bowl Boys (can’t say what their real team’s name is) are tied for first place with 15 points each. Six teams follow them down to 11 points, so the current span from first to eighth is only four points which can be made up in one week. Any of these eight teams are still in it to take the first half. Last week saw some amazing broom action. The Lady Ballers swept Save the Pins 4-0, the Gutter Girls spanked the hot-shot fearsome Incredibowls trio 4-0 and The Munsons, behind anchorman Jay Slack’s nifty 200 game, blanked The Helions 4-0. Big wins like these put them solidly in contention for the race to win the first half of the league.
League reports
Industrial: Patrick Olson: 244, 687; Chris Huff: 651; Jeff Miller: 259; Randy Nieto: 236
Tuesday Nite: Chad Mason: 240, 237, 691; Mike Parke: 254, 677; Bob Mason: 277; Jeff Hasegawa: 259; Patrick Olson: 238; Nancy Asai: 236; Nate Olson: 235
Senior Colts and Fillies: Lynn Spellman: 246,245, 675; Dick Sherrell: 234; Bernie Keys: 213
Fraternal: Josh Worth: 256, 235, 708; Mike Parke: 297; Levi Phelps: 243; Stan Pratnicki: 239; Bernie Keys: 237; Ciena Brittle: 210
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