The Rocket was one frame away from immortalization.
With 100 buzzing spectators behind her clinging to every shot, Jessy (The Rocket) Buchanan prepared for the 10th frame like she does for every shot, staring darts at the pins she was about to impose her will on.
Buchanan, 24, bowled a career-high 420, three balls from a perfect 450 game at the Interior bowling tournament at Falcon Lanes in Kamloops. She gets an all-expenses paid trip to the provincial 400 club playdowns this fall.
“Once I got to six strikes I knew I was on,” said Buchanan. “I just kept going and tried to keep the same mind-set each frame.”
The Rocket has been blowing up pins since she was four, and has never been a member of the exclusive 400 club. Her previous best was 385.
Buchanan saved her best performance for the playoffs. She breezed through the Interiors.
“I still don’t know how I did that. The lanes were terrible. When I bowl here, my ball goes straight, but there it had a mega-curve because of the lanes,” said Buchanan.
The Rocket was perfect through nine frames. Her streak stopped when she knocked down the head pin in the 10th.
When a pitcher in baseball is working on a perfect game, nobody on the team will do so much as glance at them.
Nobody wants to be the one responsible for him out of his groove. Apparently bowlers are a different breed.
“My teammates (Suzanne Beugeling, Courtney Lutgen, Krista Koenig, Yvonne Walker and Kandice Massey) were great; we had a great vibe going on the bench. We were talking and joking around like normal and that really helped keep my mind off of the need to throw more strikes.”
You don’t have to watch Buchanan bowl to grasp the nickname, you just have to listen.
Her ball screams down the lane at break-neck speed. She gets a kick out of the moniker.
“It’s kind of stupid, but I like it. I just go out there and give ‘er.”
