onefrombills
04-21-2009, 05:17 PM
If you think that bowling's popularity is in decline, you might want to talk to Bruce Hollen, captain of the winning team at Sunday's United States Bowling Congress Storm Mixed Team Challenge tournament in Baltimore.
Hollen will tell you that it took every one of Bowl America's 48 lanes to accommodate the 48 teams that signed up for competition. He will tell you about the 80 bowlers who signed up to participate in a pre-tournament sweeper. Most of all, he will tell you that nothing keeps you coming back to the lanes like winning.
"You start having success, and you feel like you want to continue," Hollen, a former PBA member, explains of his decades-long love of the sport that began at the age of 3 when his father drilled three holes in a duck-pin ball for him. "I love competition, it's great to go out and win."
Bolstered by the contributions of PBA Women's Series titlist Joy Esterson as well as Joe Tremper's 768 series in the team qualifying round, Hollen's team, Ode to Joy, bested the field with a total pinfall of 5,204 - but not before surviving several close calls with failure.
"I had three opens in the first five frames of the team qualifying round, and I bailed out with a 180. Then in the second-to-last game of the Baker round, we had to finish with a five-bagger for a 206," Hollen said of the team's second-lowest Baker game of the day. "We pulled it out in the end. I think it was a 22-pin lead going into the last game."
After staying barely ahead of the second place team by a score of 248-235 in the final game of the tournament, Hollen's team walked away with a $1,400 first-place check.
If winning is what has kept Hollen a bowler since the age of 3, Rich Conti's reason for showing up for the Mixed Team Challenge event at Philadelphia's La Martinique Lanes the day before was his son, Michael.
"He got in a little trouble with drugs when he was about 21, but he straightened up, got rid of his friends, changed his cell phone number," Conti explains. "Now he is on the right track. Bowling is his niche, he became really good. He has something to focus on now that he really wants to do. He practices every day and everyone says he is a completely different kid. He wants to take it to the next level; hopefully I can help him realize that dream."
As part of his father's winning team on Saturday, Michael enjoyed a small taste of his dream: Rich Conti's team posted a 230 average over 22 games for a tournament-winning pinfall of 5,067. That was nearly 100 pins better than the next closest team, Cross and Carry, who, despite baker scores of 270 and 275, came up short with a 4,974 pin total. But winning was the last thing on Rich Conti's mind when he arrived with his team at La Martinique Lanes.
"You never expect to win any tournament you enter," he said. "It's not about the money or winning or losing. I was just there to bowl with my son - all we talk about is bowling and softball."
The 2008-09 USBC Storm Mixed Team Challenge concludes on Memorial Day weekend, with an event on May 23 at Concord, Calif.'s Diablo Lanes followed by the final tournament at Sunset Station's Strike Zone in Las Vegas.
Hollen will tell you that it took every one of Bowl America's 48 lanes to accommodate the 48 teams that signed up for competition. He will tell you about the 80 bowlers who signed up to participate in a pre-tournament sweeper. Most of all, he will tell you that nothing keeps you coming back to the lanes like winning.
"You start having success, and you feel like you want to continue," Hollen, a former PBA member, explains of his decades-long love of the sport that began at the age of 3 when his father drilled three holes in a duck-pin ball for him. "I love competition, it's great to go out and win."
Bolstered by the contributions of PBA Women's Series titlist Joy Esterson as well as Joe Tremper's 768 series in the team qualifying round, Hollen's team, Ode to Joy, bested the field with a total pinfall of 5,204 - but not before surviving several close calls with failure.
"I had three opens in the first five frames of the team qualifying round, and I bailed out with a 180. Then in the second-to-last game of the Baker round, we had to finish with a five-bagger for a 206," Hollen said of the team's second-lowest Baker game of the day. "We pulled it out in the end. I think it was a 22-pin lead going into the last game."
After staying barely ahead of the second place team by a score of 248-235 in the final game of the tournament, Hollen's team walked away with a $1,400 first-place check.
If winning is what has kept Hollen a bowler since the age of 3, Rich Conti's reason for showing up for the Mixed Team Challenge event at Philadelphia's La Martinique Lanes the day before was his son, Michael.
"He got in a little trouble with drugs when he was about 21, but he straightened up, got rid of his friends, changed his cell phone number," Conti explains. "Now he is on the right track. Bowling is his niche, he became really good. He has something to focus on now that he really wants to do. He practices every day and everyone says he is a completely different kid. He wants to take it to the next level; hopefully I can help him realize that dream."
As part of his father's winning team on Saturday, Michael enjoyed a small taste of his dream: Rich Conti's team posted a 230 average over 22 games for a tournament-winning pinfall of 5,067. That was nearly 100 pins better than the next closest team, Cross and Carry, who, despite baker scores of 270 and 275, came up short with a 4,974 pin total. But winning was the last thing on Rich Conti's mind when he arrived with his team at La Martinique Lanes.
"You never expect to win any tournament you enter," he said. "It's not about the money or winning or losing. I was just there to bowl with my son - all we talk about is bowling and softball."
The 2008-09 USBC Storm Mixed Team Challenge concludes on Memorial Day weekend, with an event on May 23 at Concord, Calif.'s Diablo Lanes followed by the final tournament at Sunset Station's Strike Zone in Las Vegas.