Document text
45 °F Forecast | Road Cams Monday, January 24, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Opportunities Moving to Southern Oregon? MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend December 11, 2004 Smith comes to grips with perfection By TIM TROWER Mail Tribune Robert Smith will be the first to tell you he needed to get a grip. Pete Weber will be the first to tell you he wished Smith hadn’t. Smith finally turned around a bowling game that, well, needed a hand, in the Earl Anthony Medford Classic round of 32 Friday at Lava Lanes. The power thrower from Thousand Oaks, Calif., unleashed the first 300 in 1,706 games on tour and dispatched defending champion Weber with relative ease. Brad Angelo followed up one squad later with a 300 in the round of 16 to force a split of the $1,000 sponsor’s prize, but in no way did that take away from Smith’s marquee win on Friday. Advertisement Smith had struggled to start the season, so much so that he changed the grip he’d used for five years just in time for this tournament. It worked wonders against Weber, whom he defeated 4-1 by an average score of 247.4 to 211.2. "Boy, it’s been a while," said Smith, referring not only to the perfect game but to performing well in general. "To throw a 300, you need to have a little luck, but when you do, it means you made 12 pretty good shots, and I haven’t been able to say that for a while." His good fortune didn’t last as he fell 4-2 in the round of 16 to Mike Fagan, but his showing was better than it had been in recent weeks. Smith stays with an aunt and uncle in Grants Pass during the Medford stop and has a grandmother in Portland, making the lone Northwest event among his favorites on tour. His grandmother is in poor health, and he left last week’s Denver Open early in hopes of getting a chance to visit her, but a storm early in the week prevented that. Smith has been coming north since he was 10 to visit family and admitted his grandmother has often been in his thoughts. "Bowling’s been nice," he said. "It gives me something to think about besides that. With my aunt and uncle here, it definitely helps out being up here right now." Smith is no stranger to success on tour. He’s claimed six championships the past four years and wows onlookers with his high-speed, high-revolution delivery. That said, the past month has been slow for him. He’d throw a couple of 230s and sneak a game from his opponents but little more. "The last month, I don’t think any of my matches have gone past five games," said Smith. "I was losing 4-1, 4-1, 4-1, and it wasn’t even close. Guys were beating me by 20 or 30 pins a game, and it was looking like they had a lot more room than I did. But I just wasn’t throwing the ball good enough." After Denver, where he lost in the round of 32 to Steve Jaros in, you guessed it, five games, Smith adjusted his grip to one he formerly used. The idea was to lessen the hook on his ball, which was sailing wide and staying there. Smith’s ball travels about 22 mph with 560 rpms, he said, whereas the tour averages are about 17 and 370. When it got to the point where his ball wasn’t reading the lanes and was hydroplaning through the break point, a change had to be made. "I lost a lot of control," he said. "I was hanging onto the ball too long and was using my whole arm to hook the ball instead of my hand." The early returns are encouraging. He came back from a 3-1 deficit against Paul Fleming in the first round, then steamrolled Weber. "So far, it feels great, absolutely," says Smith, the blisters on his fingers notwithstanding. Weber, who sometimes travels with Smith as part of the Storm equipment team, could only admire the handiwork at his expense. In their first game, Weber "had it nailed," said Smith, until he chopped the 4-7 combination to open in the ninth. And that’s all the opening Smith needed. Weber failed to strike in the 10th, and Smith threw three strikes to win by two pins. It was the start of 18 straight strikes spanning three games — and not the only time he flirted with perfection. He also struck in the first eight frames in Game 4 and the first seven in Game 5. When he left the 3-6-7-10 in the eighth frame of the latter, Norm Duke, who had wandered over from an adjacent lane, turned to the fans and joked, "Go back to California buddy," as if one open every bazillion frames or so doesn’t cut it on this circuit. There was little Weber could do. "It doesn’t change my mind-set," he said of watching the onslaught. "We were on a pair where, if you didn’t strike, you weren’t going to win. He struck and I didn’t. That was the difference." Something Smith made perfectly clear. Reach sports editor Tim Trower at 776-4479, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers