Caouette Takes GGUSBCA Singles, All-Events Titles
Posted by BowlerCluke Monday, January 26, 2009 7:07 AM

The fact that some bowlers were busy complaining about their look at Gardner Ten Pins this season sure didn’t seem to bother Henry Caouette much. All Caouette did this past weekend was post handicap scores of 802 in singles and 2307 all-events to earn both the handicap singles title and a Factor X teammate’s third consecutive all-events championship. Taking over the reins from Matt Coe who chose not to participate in this year’s tournament, Caouette bowled scratch scores of 632 in doubles, 708 in singles and 685 in teams, finishing his championship day with 2025 all-events.

Factor X-Perience Comes Up Short

They put together an ad-hoc roster of PBA Experience bowlers who also happened to have solid tournament backgrounds in the hopes that their weekly foray into the world of more-demanding PBA lane conditions would translate into big numbers in this year’s GGUSBCA. But while the 2516 scratch put up by Ron Bernard, Henry Caouette, Tom Clukay and Stan Meunier was respectable, it wasn’t enough to earn them any cash in the 2009 team event.

Things looked promising early for Team X-Perience. Riding Henry Caouette’s big string of strikes in the opener, three-of-four X Men finished in the 200’s: Henry Caouette bowled 257, Ron Bernard 216, Tom Clukay 213, and the team appeared to be off-and-rolling with a scratch score of 868. Unfortunately for Caouette and company however, pin carry would come back to bite them in game number two, as the team would finish nearly 100 pins lower at 773, with Caouette’s 205 coming up as the only game in the black.

The team recovered nicely from their game two doldrums in the finale, putting together a game three rally that had the team in position to still make some cash with half-a-game left if they could keep the strikes flowing. But as has been the case at Gardner Ten Pins so often in the past, pin carry can prove to be a very fleeting thing; tough to find, and even tougher to hang onto. And so it would be in the final five frames of Factor X-Perience’s team event. All four bowlers pounded the pocket through the remainder of the game, but as the strikes fizzled to nine counts and pocket splits, so too did the Factor X-Perience rally. The team finished with 895, earning them a scratch score of 2516 and 2844 pins handicap, neither of which is sufficient to cash.

Leading the way for the X-Perience team was Henry Caouette’s 685 series that came on games 9f 257-205-223. Ron Bernard finished with 629, Tom Clukay 613 and Stan Meunier 589.

“I waited too long to switch to my Shark line,” Stan Meunier commented after breaking out of his mini-slump of the first two games with a 224 score in the final game.

“We bowled pretty well overall,” Clukay later commented, “just not quite well enough. A lot of bowlers said they had trouble with pin carry in the tournament this year, I guess you can add our names to the list.”

Everybody’s name except for Henry Caouette’s, that is… nice bowling, Henry.