Everything Candlepin

Well, what can I say? There was an awesome turnout this past weekend at Lakeside Lanes in Manchester, NH for the Candlepin Pro Series Random Draw Doubles Event on Saturday September 15. This was the second event of the year for the Pro Series 2012-2013 season and if you take a look at many of our Bowler Spotlights, you’ll see that this has grown to be a pretty popular event among members and even non-members of the Candlepin Pro Series. This will be a personal recap of my outing at the Random Draw Doubles. I decided to bowl the early shift, as I do with most of my Pro Series outings, so the action got started at 1 PM and I was on Lane 8. Bowling with me were Glenn Ares and Gabe Swindell.

Things started off very, very, very poorly. For the life of me, I simply could not put a mark on the board. I started off with an 86 string…..I was dead last after the first string. Needless to say, this would frustrate any bowler, so I decided to put on my shoe protectors and take a walk outside while the other two bowlers on my lane proceeded. I came to realize that if I continued to be upset about this, my scores wouldn’t get any better. Thus, I cleared my head and stepped up to bowl the second string. A small adjustment in my approach (moving slightly further to the left before I started) made all the difference. I began stringing marks together and even threw a couple of strikes. I came back strong with a 145 string. I kept this adjustment in tact and my subsequent scores were 120, 109, and 115. I totaled at 575, and this was enough to earn the 57th spot…..I qualified!

Obviously, this isn’t a fantastic total score. But what you should remember is that when it comes to the Random Draw Doubles, coming in 64th place is just as good as coming in 1st place. My story can prove this to you, and here’s why. During the drawing of the names, my name was drawn by Steve Spingola, co-champion of the 2011-2012 Random Draw Doubles event. I then drew my partner, Shawn Baker….yes Shawn Baker. How many times have you seen him on Candlepin Stars and Strikes? I’ve lost count. He draws our 1st opponent, Dave Godwin, followed by our 2nd opponent, Mark Gregory. For those of you familiar with the Candlepin scene, you know that these two guys are seriously well respected heavy hitters….we were in for quite a match.

On to our match…. I can’t quite describe how I felt, but I can tell you that I was pretty nervous considering that this was the first time that I’ve qualified for a Pro Series event. Baker sensed this, and he assured me that “all that matters is getting up there and having fun”. You’d expect to hear this from Shawn Baker, an accomplished bowler with numerous TV appearances, but this didn’t keep my heart from pounding or my palms from sweating…I was NERVOUS, and it got the best of me. I threw an underwhelming 96 string while Dave Godwin buried me with a 140 string. Nice bowling Dave, you only crushed me by 44 pins!

I felt like I blew it and that I had let my teammate down. Baker wasn’t shaken by this at all, even with a powerhouse like Mark Gregory to keep up with. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen anything quite like this. Baker kept posting mark after mark. Strikes, spares, 9-fills, you name it….he was on FIRE. Gregory held the pressure on pretty tight with his second-half marks, but Shawn was in the zone. A respectable 136 is what Gregory ended up with for a Godwin/Gregory team total of 276. Shawn Baker brought the heat and he threw six consecutive marks to finish with a 183 string!! Our team total was 279, winning the string by 3 pins. Can you say clutch!?!? He couldn’t have thrown this string at a better time! This is Pro Series caliber bowling….

I take no credit for winning that knockout match, it was all Shawn, but it certainly did break the ice for me. My nerves calmed down a bit and I found my groove again, but it wasn’t enough. We were up against Brandon Marks and Kevin Davis who posted fine scores of 160 and 127, respectively. Brandon put it away with a triple strike. Their 287 total was enough to top out our 257 (Frank/125 and Shawn/132), and we had officially been knocked out. The subsequent knockout matches were quite exciting, and it came down to Brian Purdy/Evan Mazzaferro v. Jeff Slesinski/Jesse Jacques. The 2012-2013 Candlepin Pro Series winners were Brian Purdy and Evan Mazzaferro with a score of 225 to 214.

Overall, for me, this was a PHENOMENAL experience…thanks to Shawn Baker. He’s one of those guys that I used to watch on the weekends with my dad and I ended up bowling with him as a teammate in a Pro Series event. Unreal…..

This is a testament of why everyone should get out there and bowl Candlepin. For up to the minute results and score during Pro Series events, follow @candlepinseries on Twitter (Click the button below!). Otherwise, you should come watch the events live!!! Next event takes place Sunday October 7, 2012 @ Leda Lanes in Nashua, NH for the Pros/Kids Doubles Event which is being filmed for airing on NESN!!

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