This Sunday wrapped the final five episodes of this year's GEICO PBA Team Shootout on ESPN, and not even Paul the Oracle Octopus of World Cup fame could have predicted the finish.
Like the World Cup, the final match lacked a little bit in the way of scoring, but at least it was more exciting than the "thrilling" 1-0 WC final.
But first things first, the past two weeks' worth of shows established the Brunswick Team, made up of Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, Brad Angelo, Parker Bohn III, Sean Rash, and Johnny Petraglia, as the team to beat, as they sewed up the number one seed for the stepladder after starting the round-robin matches off with a 4-0 record. The first two 30-minute episodes of Sunday's action were to determine the numbers 2 through 4 seeds for the stepladder.
In the first two matches, Ebonite locked up the number 2 seed with a win over Storm Products, forcing a tie at 3-3 with 900 Global. Since Ebonite had a higher pinfall total, they got the 2 seed, while 900 Global had to face Storm in the opening stepladder match, albeit with the advantage of gaining choice of oil patterns for the match.
The Globals, clad in their he-man muscle shirt Gemini jerseys, selected Cheetah, a seemingly sound choice given their lower rev rates (with the exception of Robert Smith who once owned that pattern the way Wes Malott now owns Scorpion) and Storm's earlier struggles on the pattern. The lineup of Walter Ray Williams, Jr., Steve Jaros, Smith, Michael Haugen, Jr., and Brian Voss got off to a quick start and a huge early lead with a turkey, while Storm Products' lineup of Malott, Pete Weber, Jason Belmonte, Rhino Page and Norm Duke (Brian Kretzer sat out) had two early open frames.
But Voss' shot in the 4th hooked high for a 6-7-10 split and Storm started stringing strikes and ended up going off the sheet for an event-high 242 score. Walter Ray had a chance to extend the match in the 10th, but left a 2-pin on his second shot, ending his team's hopes with a final score of 242-200.
Next up for Storm was Ebonite, a team that was probably the favorite heading in to the competition with a stacked lineup of Chris Barnes, Tommy Jones, Mike Scroggins, Jason Couch, Mike Fagan and Bill O'Neill. Like 900 Global, Ebonite picked the Cheetah, basing their decision off of the look their team had on an earlier round competing on that pattern.
But Storm's opening match performance gave them some momentum and they continued to strike, finishing with a solid 228 to force Ebonite's back to the wall heading into the 10th. Anchor man Tommy Jones, who earlier sustained an injury when he stuck on the approach and landed hard on the microphone pack clipped to his belt, threw three gems to give his team a pop at an endless 10th frame where they needed three strikes to steal the match. After Mike Fagan threw a mesmerizing boomerang strike, Bill O'Neill stepped up and slammed a 10 pin on a pretty darn good shot to end his team's hopes.
That set up the final between Storm and Brunswick, who had been the Cinderella team from the start of the competition. Adopting an early chip on its collective shoulder after Chris Barnes' early-match "ladies and legends" comment (you can always count on CB for a little extra motivation can't you?) Team Brunswick was not only bowling to prove that it belonged, but also for CDB's beloved husband Del, who had just received word of an illness he'll be fighting to overcome prior to the competition. (Best wishes to Del and family as he gears up for the fight, by the way).
The natural choice for Team Brunswick would have been Cheetah, but having seen Storm gobble up two prior opponents on that pattern, Brunswick took a calculated risk and selected Chameleon, a pattern they'd lost on earlier but one that Storm had not seen throughout the competition.
The pattern played brutal for both teams, each racking up early open frames and struggling to find the pocket. Some key moments were a whiffed 10-pin by Sean Rash in the 5th and a wide-open split from Jason Belmonte in the 3rd. Heading into the 10th working on a double, Norm Duke could have given his team a huge advantage, but he made a small move off his 4-pin in the 5th and came up light, leaving a bucket. When his spare attempt failed to carry the back pin his team was finished with 167, forcing anchor player Sean Rash to either strike out or, at least strike on the fill to activate the endless 10th frame for Angelo and CDB.
Sean's first shot in the 10th was quality, but he left a 4-pin. Watching him prepare to shoot the spare was as nerve-racking as waiting in line for Kingda Ka and the attempt was equally hair-raising as he flinched on his follow-through and barely clipped the right side of the pin to keep his team alive. (Incidentally, there is now officially a problem with Sean making single pin spares on TV...good thing for him that his strike ball is so ridiculously awesome.) With the blood coming back to his head with the knowledge that he'd get to shoot at another full rack, Rash blew it up with a clutch strike and kept his team alive.
Brad Angelo then threw a dead pure X to put the fate of the entire competition in the hands of CDB. Needing just one strike to win the whole darn thing, the weight of all of the team's expectations coupled with the extremely tough lane condition proved too much to overcome, as her shot hooked high to leave the 3-pin. Final score: 167-159. Hey, at least it was better than 1-0.
Overall, this year's competition was yet another improvement to the now-traditional Six Flags/GEICO team series. I truly enjoyed the change to making it a manufacturer competition, which added quite a bit of legitimacy and real stakes to the action. Of course, it was also a tremendous showcase for the great equipment that all of the companies involved continue to put out on a regular basis. If you're genuinely interested in bowling competitively, like I am, then learning about the equipment is paramount and all of these companies do a fantastic job of not only producing it, but also explaining how it works and how best to take advantage of it in a way that best enhances your game.
The other thing I loved about the competition was that it really drove home the value of the Gemini jerseys that have now been around for the past two seasons. Personally, after bowling in one Tour stop and one regional event in my old "polo-style" name shirt, I have to say that if you want to look like a pro, then you need to have one of these jerseys. And contrary to popular belief, for as little as $52, you can have your own custom jersey direct from Gemini. Click here for more details.
And finally, I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate my friend and co-worker Mike Jakubowski, who did a phenomenal job filling in for the World Cup-bound Rob Stone (poor Rob, I bet even he couldn't infuse life into the dismal World Cup matches). Mike J. is a different kind of announcer than Rob, calling the matches with the same feel as you'd find in a baseball game, pulling in stats and anecdotes from his encyclopedic knowledge of the sport at the appropriate time. I'd love to see Mike get a chance to call a "real" ESPN finals to see if his calls of truly iconic moments would be as awesome as Rob's were from last season (even those of you who are not big fans of Rob Stone's irreverent rejoinders simply cannot argue what a great job he did calling the great moments...Kulick's T of C win, Smallwood's World Championship triumph. etc...) But remember, you can listen to Mike J. for hours every week during the season calling all the action leading up to the ESPN finals on Xtra Frame. Click here to subscribe.
Finally, I want to let you know that all of the GEICO PBA Team Shootout telecasts will be posted on Xtra Frame by the end of the week (with another show going up every day starting today), and that for the rest of the week, the entire batch of player interviews will be posted on Xtra Frame, unedited and in their entirety. Please log on each day to see the latest. As far as programming, click here for the latest announcement of Xtra Frame programming to see all of the great PBA action on the schedule for this summer (plus the finals of the Teen Masters from Reno in less than two weeks.)
Till next time...happy bowling!