2000 City Tournament at New Smyrna Lanes
Team Event:181, 191, 134: 506
Singles:161, 189, 171: 521
Doubles:147, 171, 164: 482
Average:167.667
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Ah. The City Tournament. Not your average walk in the park. Instead, you've
got some stiff competition. Exactly, since many of the best bowlers from East
Volusia County, FL don't excel, so the playing field is fairly level. Only
one can stand up from the rest. Ultra-tough, but it's possible to win.
Here's how I did.
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Team event: I consider the team event as the second most difficult part
of the tournament. In the early going, I seemed to be very strong. I bowled
no less than 5 strikes in each of the first two games. Then everything broke
in half. I left so many splits that it was scary. And I couldn't convert any
of them. I seemingly averaged one split every time I got a spare, and I was
strikeless until the 10th. That's no way to finish a series.

Singles: I consider this the most difficult part of the tournament to win.
In singles, you pit yourself against many, many bowlers from your division.
The objective is to have a higher Handicap Series than everyone else. Something
like in the 750's or higher, with a base handicap of 90% of 210. As for how
good I did, I performed by best in the tournament. But, when you have to shoot
635 to take the big trophy home, a 521 Series is good for 50th place.

Doubles: Instead of four-bowler teams, Doubles consists of you and a partner.
I consider this the least difficult part of the tournament to win, especially
when your partner is coming strong off of Singles. But, I didn't do too well.
Combined, my team performed above average, but nothing special happened. In
Game 1, I had loads of problems. In my second worst game of the tournament,
I bowled nothing but splits and I couldn't convert them. I did better in Game
2, while in Game 3, I bowled 7 spares in a row and one strike, which gave me
a 164. It's certainly better than 7 open frames, but not nearly as good as a
240 game resulting from getting 7 strikes in a row.

Overall, I didn't do too badly, but when your aiming for the tournament's
grand prize, I just didn't perform well enough.

If you ever head towards New Smyrna Lanes, here's what you need to know:
The lanes are synthetic, so the ball slides more often. As for pin action
You will strike more than 90% of the time if you hit the pocket. If you hit
the headpin dead-on, you're almost guaranteed a split. Overall difficulty: Easy.

We now return you to regular Coquina Juniors 2 programming...