Growth of Bowling

Bowling, America's fastest growing sport, has seen a large increase at the college level. The number of programs continues to grow each year, and the competition is at an unprecedented level.

Scholarships are now being given at colleges for bowling a lot more frequently, and that greatly reflects the growth. Hopefully, the sport of bowling continues this growth into the future.

Bellarmine Gearing Up for Vegas

On the 15th of December, Bellarmine's Bowling Team will head to Las Vegas for a week to participate in two tournaments (Las Vegas Invitational and Collegiate Shoot-Out). These tournaments are both Tier 1 tournaments, which are the most competitive with the best teams bowling.

The guy's team will bring 6 members, while the girl's team will have 8 members. The best of luck is wished to both teams.

Trick Shot Bowling

Practice is obviously key to success in any sport. There are ways in bowling to make practice more challenging, and that is by performing trick shots. Trick shots force you to hit your mark and control the ball speed and hook. Chris Barnes' "Flying Eagle" is perhaps the most noted trick shot.

Bowling Ball Arsenal

With the difficult shots so prevalent in college bowling, a bowler must be prepared for almost any condition. Thus, having a wide range of bowling balls is critical to one's success.

To be realistic, a bowler should have at least 6 different bowling balls to be prepared for a tournament. These balls should vary in their reaction to the lane. For instance, some balls have very strong coverstocks that enable them to create friction with the lane and hook a lot. Other balls must be a little less aggressive in case the bowler does not need as much hook to strike. Plastic balls create almost no friction with the lane and go straight. Bowlers will use plastic balls at spares because it takes the lane condition out of play; the bowler can just hit his or her mark and not worry about the ball hooking away from the pins.

Bowling ball surfaces can also be manipulated to give bowlers different looks. If one wanted to make a ball hook a little more, he or she could rub sandpaper on the ball to dull the surface; this would allow the ball to grab onto the lane sooner and hook. If the bowler wanted to create less hook, he or she could polish the bowling ball.

The concept of knowing when to use the right ball for the right condition will never be completely mastered; it can just become better over time with experience.

House Shot vs. Sport Shot

In the world of college bowling, challenge is everything. In order to challenge some of the most skilled bowlers in the country, difficult shot patterns are necessary. One may ask, "What constitutes as a difficult oil pattern?" The answer is a sport shot.

If any person walked into a bowling alley to open bowl, he or she would bowl on a lane that had a House Shot (THS). On THS (the block or christmas tree diagrams above), there is a heavy amount of oil located in the center of the lane. As the lane expands out to the gutter, there is less and less oil. This allows a bowler to have a wide margin of error in hitting their mark. For instance, if a bowler's mark was the 10th board, he or she could most likely miss 5 boards left or right and still strike. When the ball is pulled to the left of the mark, the heavy oil allows the ball to continue skidding and not hook (friction cannot be created). When the ball misses the target to the right, the ball hooks back to the pocket (the 1-2 pins for left-handers and the 1-3 pins for right-handers) more sharply because it comes into contact with the dry (friction occurs sooner). Therefore, the purpose of THS is to allow bowlers to score very highly. Bowling centers want bowlers to have high scores so that they will be happy and continue bowling; it makes sense.

On a sport shot (the flat oil and reverse block are examples), however, that margin of error is eliminated to almost nothing. The oil in a sport shot is strategically placed to force bowlers to hit their market. Whereas on THS a bowler usually has 10 boards of error, a bowler on a sport shot might only have one board for error. Speed is also critical on a sport shot because if a ball is thrown too fast or too slow, it could cause the ball to not hit the breakpoint accurately; this will cause ugly splits and tough spares. A good reference for THS vs. Sport Shots can be found here.

Week 10 Rankings!

Top 5 Guy's Teams:
1. Lindenwood University
2. Purdue University
3. Saginaw Valley State University
4. Wichita State University
5. William Paterson University

94. Bellarmine University

Top 5 Girl's Teams:
1. Lindenwood University
2. Pikeville College
3. Central Florida /University of
4. McKendree University
5. Wichita State University

35. Bellarmine University

2007 Women's College Bowling Championship

Here is the video of the 2007 National Collegiate Women Championship, and this really helps one get a feel for the atmosphere in college bowling. Imagine teams such as Vanderbilt and Maryland Eastern Shore lined across over forty bowling lanes; the yelling and intensity displayed are present for every team in every tournament.