Mark Shaw’s bowling average may be 193, but it was definitely helped last week when he bowled more than double that amount.
Shaw started the night by rolling an amazing 10 strikes in a row on his way to a 416 in the first game.
During the game, Shaw recalled thinking to himself: “Am I going to do it again, and again, and again? I thought, boy this is unbelievable.”
“It was a good way to wind up the year. I wasn’t frustrated, I just relaxed and it just kept happening, just bang, bang, and everybody was looking. Soon it got nine then 10 and I was thinking to myself ‘only two more to go.’”
Shaw came only two strikes away from bowling the perfect game, something he never saw himself doing seven years ago when he started bowling.
“I had no idea. It just sort of happened, and it was the last game of the season of all times,” said Shaw.
It wasn’t the first time Shaw impressed himself with a high score on the last game of the season. Shaw recalls bowling a 307 two years ago, his highest score until this point.
According to Shaw’s wife Pat, that’s the way the game goes, sometimes you can have a bad game and not bowl very well at all, and sometimes you get 10 strikes in a row.
“You never really know what kind of game you’re going to have, that’s the joy of it,” she said.
Shaw wasn’t the only one who did well on the last game of the year; he was happy with the way the team closed out the season.
“Our team did very well for the last game of the year. We have kind of a mixed bag, sometimes some of the people can’t show up and sometimes they do. Overall we’re not doing to bad,” said Shaw.
“It’s an outing for us, for Pat and I, we do it for self satisfaction and for health reasons.”
Bowling was never a life goal or a competitive sport for Shaw. It was his wife who got him into it.
“Pat was doing it, and one night I asked, ‘well what do you want to do tonight’ and she says ‘well I bowl, do you want to start bowling with me?’ So I figured I might as well. That’s how we more or less got started.”
Bowling isn’t the only recreation Shaw and his wife do – the two also swim, ski, play tennis and travel quite a bit.
One thing is for certain, Shaw won’t soon forget the time when an entire bowling alley cheered him as he bowled his way to a 416 game.
“Everybody was cheering it on and everybody was saying ‘great, this is unbelievable’ and I looked at the score and I couldn’t believe it because I thought it would never happen, a score that high,” said Shaw.
