By BILL SNIER
CUYAHOGA FALLS — Dom Barrett was making his first appearance in the event. Dave Wonka had bowled in it 10 times with various partners as a junior and senior player.
How did the two pair up?
“I got him drunk enough in my basement playing darts to get him to agree to bowl with me,” Woke, a 54-year-old Muskegon, Mich., right-hander said, laughing.
The pairing paid off handsomely during the opening shift of Saturday’s PBA-PBA50 Doubles-Clutch Lanes Central Open at Clutch Lanes and Sports Center.
Wodka and Barrett held the lead from Game 1 on in the eight-game block, finishing with 3,586 total pinfall, an average of 224.13 per player.
“We got into a good rhythm right from the start,” said Wonka, who bowled the last three times in the event with Ronnie Russell. “When you get used to the pattern a little you see the lane a little better and we had decent ball reaction. So it was just a matter of execution at that point.”
Barrett said he was simply “trying to keep pace with Dave … he seemed to be striking on every shot.
“The top 12 is where you want to be, but the top four is even better. Dave just got back from a cruise so he’s relaxed. My good weeks on tour have been good and the shit ones have been shit. There hasn’t been much in between.”
Wodka was the high senior of the morning session, averaging 223.50 despite shooting 184 and 192 his final two games. He finished fifth overall.
Barrett, the first European to win bowling’s Triple Crown (U.S. Open, PBA World Championships and Tournament of Champions), also shot 182 in Game 8, but still finished fourth individually by averaging 224.75.
“There wasn’t so much a difference end to end for me … more like pair to pair. There are pairs on both ends that are not very good, and (Lanes) 1 and 2, which we hit the last game, neither of us had a good look,” Wodka said. “We ran out of approach.”
Defending champions Graham Fach and Michael Haggitt remained in the top five most of the day, ultimately sitting third after the opening session with 3,500. Randy Weiss and Sean Lavery-Spahr, sitting fifth going into Game 8, moved up to second with 3,504.
“I had a lot of trouble. I tried to be Graham Fach and I’m not Graham Fach,” said Haggitt, a 55-year-old Springfield left-hander. “I was in a hole from the get-go and went to urethane. After that, it took a while to get used to it and I couldn’t carry, so had to get back out of that.”
Fach, the two-time PBA Central Region Player of the Year who won the PBA Tour’s opening event in Delaware this season, led individuals with 1,947 (243 average) and 112 pins ahead of Lavery-Spahr.
“I threw urethane the whole time and I really felt comfortable. I was able to throw shots, pins were falling and I was smiling,” said Fach, a 33-year-old Canadian born Urbana left-hander. “Confidence is always important. When you have it, it is an advantage mentally, maybe not physically. But when you feel like you’re bowling well, the pins find a way to fall.”
Haggitt averaged just 194.13, ranking 33rd in the opening shift.
“It’s the same thing year after year … Graham bowls his ass off and I muddle along and on Sunday, I help him,” Haggitt said. “Our games are different. He is so far inside of me that he’s not seeing what I’m seeing.”
But both teams agreed the Billy Hardwick 44 oil pattern was difficult for all.
“I felt like the scores were lower and put more importance on shot making,” Fach said. “If you weren’t seeing it, it was hard to find good ball reaction.”
Wodka called it “one of the tougher patterns we’ve seen in this event.”
“At the end of the day, the cut score is going to be one of the lower ones we’ve had,” Wodka said. “We were just short of 400 to lead (the shift) and Iv’e seen years where that number didn’t even make the cut.’
NOTEBOOK: Fach had the high game of the first shift with 280 in Game 2 while Lavery-Spahr had 279 in the same game. … The first shift had 22 teams, with 23 teams in the second shift. There were three withdrawals, including Eugene and Kevin McCune and Chris and Ryan Barnes. Both of the sons still were involved in the stepladder of the Players Championship in Michigan. Bruce and Andrew Hall were the other withdrawals. Several other teams added new partners to compensate for missing players. … Teams seeded fifth through 12th will open best-of-seven team Baker System game match play at 8 a.m. Sunday, with the winners then bowling against teams seeded first through fourth for a second seven-game round. From there, the next two rounds are best-of-five Baker matches until a winner is determined. … This is the 27th year a regional has been conducted at Clutch Lanes, including two name changes and owners. North Lanes proprietor Dick Barger was on hand to watch the action. “It brings back a lot of memories,’’ he said. … Admission all weekend was free for spectators.
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