CUYAHOGA FALLS — Up until the last couple of weeks, Tom Daugherty wasn’t even sure he was going to bowl at Clutch Lanes and Sports Center.
“My partner (Lennie Boresch) was getting inducted into the (PBA) Hall of Fame and he had so much to do with the ceremony, he didn’t want to bowl,” the 48-year-old Riverview, Fla., right-hander said.
“I knew that Tom (Hess) didn’t have a partner because Sean Rash was having some back problems and wanted to take some time off before the TOC (PBA Tournament of Champions). So I asked him. If he would have said know, I wasn’t going to bowl.”
The first-time pairing turned out well.
Daugherty and Hess, a 53-year-old Granger, Iowa, right-hander and former PBA50 player and rookie of the year, earned a three-game sweep over Larry Verble and Patrick Dombrowski in the best-of-five Baker System finale to capture the PBA-PBA50 Doubles-Clutch Lanes Central Open on Sunday.
“We just communicated so well yesterday with the moves and transitions. I didn’t have the best day, but I fought hard and Tom bailed us out with a couple of big games at the end,” Hess said. “Today, the first match was a lot of me. But we got on a roll after that.”
Hess, who had just five 200 games during Saturday’s eight-game qualifier and averaged 208, shot 223 in Game 8 while Daugherty, who averaged 222 on the day, shot 258. That enabled the pair to move up to ninth in the standings and secure a spot in the top 12 for Sunday’s match play.
“We bowled pretty well yesterday,” Daugherty said. “I knew it was going to start off a little rough just based on the practice session until I could get them where I wanted them.
“We kind of hung in there for awhile, but I knew the last few games we could get them. We hit a bad pair that almost cost us (388 in Game 7), but we bowled a big last game to get there. We never panicked. We were fortunate to hit a couple of good pairs when we needed it.”
DIFFICULT START
In their opening matchup with Dave Johnson and Sam DeWitt III, Daugherty admitted he struggled.
“I had nothing on that end pair … it’s just the way it was,” Daugherty said even though the pair survived with a 4-3 win in the best-of-seven Baker System matchup. “In this format, it’s hard for one guy to carry the other. I was just making spares, trying to make everything, and we survived.
“We were pretty good after that.”
The pair then took out No. 1 seed Walter Ray Williams Jr. and Nate Garcia 4-3 before stopping No. 7 seed Michael DeVaney and E.J. Tackett, the PBA Tour’s hottest individual bowler with three titles this season, 3-2. Daugherty and Hess shot 268 in Game 2 and then held on for a 247-246 win in the final game to move on.
The final match came against No. 6-seeded Regional Players Invitational champion Dombrowski, a 44-year-old Parma right-hander and Verble, a 57=year-old Mason, Mich., right-hander who had swept past No. 5-seeded Graham Fach and Michael Haggitt in the semifinals 3-0.
In Game 1, Hess left a 1-2-4-5-10 in the second frame, but converted it. From there, the pair missed only once en route to a 269-236 win. Verble and Dombrowski threw four strikes in a row at the end to no avail. The game included Dombrowski converting the 4-6-10 split off the back wall.
Game 2 was a challenge for both teams, with Hess leaving a stoned 7-9 split in the sixth frame and Verble leaving a 4-6-7 split in the third. But a key was Dombrowski missing a 10-pin spare in the fourth.
“That’s probably the one I would like to have back,” Dombrowski said. “I had a couple of other bad shots, but what are you going to do? That’s bowling. You have to take the good with the bad.”
Daugherty and Hess had two doubles from the seventh frame on, including a light hit that carried on the second ball in the 10th frame by Hess, which led the pair to a 205-202 win.
“I just couldn’t get the ball to shape right or get the ball through the pins the right way,” Verble said. “I’d been going with one ball for most of the day and couldn’t make a change now. So I tried making adjustments with hand positions and releases. I just couldn’t get the ball to shape right on the back ends.”
Dombrowski added the fresh oil on the open pairs as match play advanced also “got a little flatter … it depended on how they broke down in practice.”
“Luckily, they stayed right, and we were a little too far left,” Dombrowski said. “They were creating their hold.”
“They stayed there and we went further left, which we had been doing all day. We just couldn’t get around the corner,” Verble said. “Plus, they are two pretty good players.”
Daugherty and Hess saw a difference on the title pair on the left lane.
“The left lane was hooking a little earlier, and that made it tough for sure,” Daugherty said after the pair hit the left lane for Game 2. “That’s why I threw two different balls on the two lanes. I knew my look wasn’t as good, but other than that, we bowled similar to where we were all day.
“Once we figured it out, it was all good from there.”
The pair then returned to the right lane and missed on only two shots en route to a 265-197 win to clinch the title.
Verble and Dombrowski, good friends back back to when “I still had hair” the balding Verble said, have bowled in the event for three seasons, with this being their best finish.
“They were tricky yesterday. With the new patterns, they tend to have oil get down the lanes further to the back ends,” Verble said. “On a typical condition, you can break it down and find friction down the lanes.
“But that wasn’t the case here. You had to create your own changes, using different releases or hand positions to get the ball to shape the right way.”
“It was difficult getting the ball around the corner,” Dombrowski said. “You had to throw it slow enough, but good enough to get it through the front to get there.”
The two paired up after Dombrowski’s partner (Dick Gran) moved out of state and Verble’s partner (T.J. Schmidt) decided to drop his PBA card.
“It’s been good for two of the three years,” Dombrowski said.
Daugherty and Hess next look forward to this week’s PBA Tournament of Champions at AMF Riviera Lanes in Fairlawn while Dombrowski hopes to earn a spot during Monday’s tournament qualifier after making the field a year ago.
“It’s my favorite event of the year with the best prize fund and I usually bowl fairly well,” Daugherty said. “But with the new format, with 17 making the show, my goal is to be in that top 17.”
Hess, one of just 12 senior players in the field, hopes for a repeat of 2022.
“That was my only cash on the regular tour last year,” Hess said. “I’ve been very solid there, just missing by a few pins a couple of times. But I finally broke through last year.
“Today gave me a lot of confidence. I threw a lot of really good shots,” Hess said. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll get to cross with Tom.”
The action at Riviera begins with the first qualifying round at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Hess and Daugherty will be back to defend next year. But after that …
“I’ll be a senior so I have to get a new partner,” Daugherty said.
NOTEBOOK: The tourney drew a full field of 48 teams over two squads. … Williams and Garcia were the qualifying leaders with 3,781 total pinfall, an average of 236.31 per player… Garcia was the individual qualifying leader with 2,002 over eight games, an average of 250.25, 104 pins ahead of Shawn Maldonado. Garcia had a pair of 278s to go with a 279. … Samuel Cooper had the lone 300 during qualifying. … Michael Runk and Brandon Runk were the cut with 3,414, just 19 pins ahead of John Marsala and AJ Chapman. … First place was worth $4,000 for Hess and Daugherty. … Rootstown’s Dean Billings and Warren’s James Nolan earned the final cash spot, finishing 16th with 3,363, just 12 pins ahead of Chris Barnes and Stu Williams. … Another area pair, Akron’s Don Hogue and Doylestown’s Joe Bailey, finished 19th with 3,348. … Billings was the high senior player during qualifying, finishing ninth overall with 1,800 (225 average). … Many of these players will be returning next week for the Ohio Blasting Under 50-Over 50 Scratch Doubles event also at Clutch Lanes. It begins at 9 a.m. Sunday.
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