Our clubhouse can be yours for a fine social event.
BLBC Pres. Ashok Verma to BLBCers on 5/20/2024:
Please join me in extending our heartiest congratulations to Janie Hillyer and Jim Corr for winning the Pacific Inter-mountain Division (PIMD) Singles women’s and men’s title at the Rossmoor LBC. We now have two champions who will be representing the PIMD clubs at the National Championships in Milwaukee. The National Championships will be held at Milwaukee Lake park LBC in September 2024.
Jim Corr to BLBC Bowlers on 5/12/2024:
The final rounds of BLBC’s 2024 2-Bowl Singles Tournament were held on Saturday, May 11 amid lovely bowling weather. HC Yung, our dual member from the Kowloon Green Bowling Club (Hong Kong), emerged as champion after a show of steady, steady bowling over the three games.
The tournament started with four groups containing four players who played in round robin format with the top two from each group qualifying for the final day’s play. They were—in order of seeding—Cris Benton, Daniel Gorelick, Hugo Deaux, HC Yung, Gary “Bing” Burns, Tom Birt, Kevin Reynolds, and Jim Audas.
In the opening quarter final play, HC, drawn against Bing, jumped into an early lead, up 11-4 at one stage in the first-to-15-points game. But Bing fought back eventually edging in front 13-12. However, HC recovered his form on the next two ends to claim first one, then two points thus coming out on top 15-13. Meanwhile, on the other side of the green Hugo was winning his match against Tom with relative ease in a 15-7 victory. In the other two quarter-finals, Daniel beat Kevin 15-11 and Cris won 15-10 against Jim.
The semifinals saw Hugo in an early back-and-forth against Daniel, the score tied 5-5 after six ends. Daniel kept up the pressure to hold the game to 11-10 in Hugo’s favor on the thirteenth end. But three winning ends brought Hugo through to the final with a 15-10 victory. In the other semi, HC and Cris fought a ding-dong battle, each enjoying mini “streaks” and the score tied on a couple of occasions through the first sixteen ends. The game was still anyone’s on the 22nd end at 14-13for HC, but he got the necessary decisive point on the next end to win 15-13.
In the final, played to 18 points, HC turned on a show with one fine shot after another to run up a dominating lead of 15-3. But Hugo was not letting go quite that easily and with several winning ends battled back to put an additional eight points on the board before HC recovered and took the game—and the championship—to an 18-11 victory.
Congratulations to HC and thanks to all the bowlers who put on a fine display for the spectators. Also, thanks to Daniel for a well-organized tournament from start to finish, to Sarah Allday and Susan Jamart for supplying the vittles, and, as always, to our greenskeepers for providing a beautiful-to-the-eye and beautifully-running green.
HC Yung, Winner (right), and Hugo Deaux, Runner Up (left), BLBC 20204 2-Bowl Singles
From Bud Birkenseer, PIMD Tournament Director on 4/15/2024:
Congratulations to Bernadette and HC for winning the PIMD mixed pairs!
What a journey, rain, wind, the party’s ON the party is OFF. The wind stopped then blew again, but the games went ON.
Thanks everyone, I appreciate that you ALL made it to the Club and ON TIME.
I saw some very nice shots made over the day. Very impressive considering most of you couldn’t feel your fingers.
Congrats to our Champions!
HC Yung and Bernadette Chan who went undefeated and had a differential of 19 points
The runners up John and Angie Peet also went undefeated, but their differential missed the mark by a few points.
Four teams won money, and we had an added donation to the prize pool! Thank you to our unnamed donor.
I am sure the winners will find a way to spend that extra cash.
I just don’t want our PIMD bowlers to expect these large prize money amounts in ALL our PIMD tournaments!!
(Thank you mystery donor!)
Glenn Nunez to BLBCers on 3/30/2024:
It was pointed out to me recently that I’ve been remiss in sharing the results of the recently-completed BLBC February Follies with our Club members. Mea culpa.
This experimental league event turned out to be aptly named, as the folly of scheduling anything during the unpredictability of February weather in the Bay Area presented more than a fair share of topsy-turvy. Two dates postponed by rain led to some folks, unable to meet the new schedule, playing their matches midweek. Only half of the original twelve entrants bowled in glorious sunshine during the final Saturday.
When the dust finally settled, Cindy Moss, Ashok Verma, Art Kotoulas, and Sal Garcia-Lemus took home prize envelopes. Cathy Dinnean laid down the winning shot in the post-tournament scramble to claim the not-insubstantial contents of the Ron Byus Memorial Kitty. All in all, it was a pretty good event…
If enough people show interest, I’d consider setting up a similar league – with a couple of format tweaks – sometime this Summer. Let me know back-channel if you might be interested and if so, would you prefer a daytime event on a weekend, or an evening during the week.
BLBC Pres. Ashok Verma to BLBCers on 3/11/2024:
Please join me in extending our appreciation to the tournament committee for organizing the first BLBC tournament of 2024, which is also the first ever 4321 tournament at BLBC.
Because of the planning and organization of the tournament director, Daniel Goerlick, the day went flawlessly. Cathy, as always, was hospitable to all. Let’s not forget the volunteers who donated their time to help out and be the markers for these games.
Sixteen bowlers competed for the honor of being the first 4321 champion of BLBC. After three rounds of round-robin games, four bowlers – Chris Davis, Cris Benton, Hugo Deaux, and Daniel Gorelick – had won all three of their games. Chris Davis and Cris Benton were declared the two finalists based on score differential.
The final game between Chris and Cris was a cliffhanger, worthy of this historic event! They competed fiercely to be the first to reach 70 points and claim the championship. In the end, Chris Davis managed to reach 71 to Cris Benton’s 69 to claim the honor.
Congratulations Chris!
(In the picture below: Cris Benton on the left and Chris Davis on the right)
“They sure didn’t bowl like novices!”
BLBC Pres. Glenn Nunez to BLBCers on 12/4/2023:
After watching the participants during the eight morning matches of last Saturday’s BLBC Novice Tournament, one of our club’s veterans confided to me that he was glad he wasn’t playing against them. We had some serious bowling going on. There were blowouts. There were matches decided on the last end. The four markers went through a lot of chalk. One end was so close that even the umpire declared it a tie. And there were just enough wrong-biased deliveries to keep it real.
I was tempted to start this paragraph with “When the dust settled,” but mist and drizzle throughout the chilly, overcast day made sure there was no dust to settle. So… After tallying the results of the two Round Robins, Cindy announced that Judy Hillyer and Gordon Beveridge had each swept their matches to finish as the preliminaries’ only undefeated contestants and would face each other in the first-to-eighteen-points Final.
An enthusiastic audience, including Ginger Cheng – winner of 2022’s edition of this event who was on hand to congratulate her successor – gathered at the center rink. Applause was the order of the afternoon as both finalists showcased skills gleaned from many months of diligent practice and competition at various levels. Judy probably could make a case that Gordon be cited for petty larceny, as time and again she laid down an impeccable shot only to see him draw just a smidge closer or somehow pop her seemingly unbeatable bowl out of the head. Judy never faltered, but Gordon’s repeated successes proved to be too much and he finally claimed victory shortly before dusk. Congratulations, Gordon!
Kudos to our stellar Hospitality Committee for providing goodies and to those participants who added extra treats. Thanks also to the day’s volunteer markers. It was heartening to see the number of new bowlers stepping up for their first competition. The future looks bright for bowling at BLBC.
Great day on the Green
Jim Corr to BLBCers on 9/16/2023:
An unseasonably gray and chilly Saturday saw 14 players compete for the 2023 4-Bowl Singles title on a fast-running green. And the markers and small band of spectators saw some fine bowling and closely contested matches.
The format provided for a preliminary round of three matches played to first to 15 points, followed by the top two players from that stage battling it out in a first to 18 points Final.
At the end of the set of three matches, Jim Corr emerged in first place after defeating Bernie Chan, Daniel Gorelick (the latter in a down-to-the wire 15-14 victory) and Hugo Deaux. Meanwhile, Robin Hoey was also on 3 wins—over Jim Audas, Luis Zapata, and Phil Grattan—but had to await the outcome of the match between Ian Cameron and Bernie Chan. Ian went into that game with two wins (beating Annie Brillhart and Bing Burns along the way). A win by any margin would give Ian the advantage over Rob based on differential, but it turned out to be a nail biter. He and Bernie went toe-to-toe until tying at 14 each. With Bernie holding three shots, Ian snuck in with his last bowl to take the point and the game, edging Rob out of the Final by the margin of that one point.
The matchup for the Championship game was a repeat of the 2018 4-Bowl Singles Final in which Ian (then still a novice) had defeated Jim by a solitary point. He looked like handily repeating that win by jumping into a 13-5 lead. But after a short “bathroom break,” Jim returned to the field and bit by bit fought his way back into the match. Whether it was the break that broke the momentum, or his tactic of playing longer jacks than had been seen hitherto, or the “curse of 13” falling on Ian, Jim did not concede another point and worked his way steadily to an 18-13 victory.
Thanks go out to all those who assisted, especially our wonderful greeenskeeping team, the markers who gave up a part of their Saturday to keep the games flowing nicely, and to Sarah Allday and the hospitality crew for providing vittles.
Jim Corr to BLBC Bowlers on 8/24/2023:
Our Wednesday evening Summer League came to an end last night after 7 weeks of keen competition. You will recall (or not!) that the format was 12-end Pairs games with separate round robin sections for Skips and Leads—i.e., each Skip played once against each other Skip and each Lead once against each other Lead. Unfortunately, the parameters did not allow us to arrange that each Lead played with or against each Skip only once, so there was some doubling or tripling of those combinations. That said, it was a fun event and a nice way to pass a summer evening. And in the end, as shown in the attachment, the winners were:
Skips—Cris Benton in 1st Place (with an impeccable 7 wins out of 7), Glenn Nunez 2nd Place, and Mo Shooer 3rd Place (just edging out Hugo Deaux). On the Leads’ side, Lennon Hamilton took 1st Place, aided by a victory against Cindy Moss on the final evening, who emerged 2nd, with Judy Hillyer coming up 3rd, by almost the narrowest possible margin ever. She and Gordon Beveridge were tied on win/loss points, tied on differential (points scored minus points ceded), and Judy won through the ratio of points scored to points ceded—a mere 2/1000th of a point!
Thanks to all the participants and those who participated as subs when needed due to absences. And to Cathy Dinnean for arranging snacks and drinks to round of the final week.
See you on the green.
BLBC Pres. Glenn Nunez to BLBCers on 8/14/2023:
As most of you know, this past Saturday saw our club host the annual Tunnel Challenge with our good friends – and worthy opponents – from Rossmoor LBC. Long-standing travel plans prevented BLBC’s Tournament Director from coordinating the event, but Jim confidently handed the reins to Cindy, who (if I do say so myself) acquitted herself admirably. Thanks to a crew of capable volunteers on all fronts, everything went off without a hitch.
Six teams of three bowlers from each club faced off in two 14 end matches. After a couple of routs and a couple of nail-biters, Berkeley’s squad found itself up 5-1 when the morning’s dust settled. A leisurely lunch preceded another set of games in the afternoon. The home team wasn’t about to squander its commanding lead and wound up repeating the morning’s result to handily secure victory. Once the engravers have etched “2023 BERKELEY” on the plaque, you’ll see it proudly displayed on our clubhouse walls for the first of what we hope will be many consecutive years.
Check out the pictures of everyone surrounding Aika holding the trophy and yours truly making sure Rossmoor’s President doesn’t abscond with it!
Now it’s on to the Meat Axe…
“… and Annie makes two!”
BLBC Pres. Glenn Nunez to BLBCers on 7/10/2023:
We’ve all known that Annie Brillhart has made a business of taking care OF the green, but she’s also quite capable of taking care of business ON the green as well.
Yesterday, Annie carried BLBC’s flag to San Francisco for the PIMD Women’s Singles Playdowns to determine its representative for the 2023 U.S. National Championships. It was a one-day, round-robin, winner-take-all event and Annie’sfirst game was, as they say, “a real nail biter.” She quickly found herself down 7-0 to the eventual runner-up before rallying to an even position a dozen points in. From there the two women traded winning shots until they came to the ultimate end tied 17-17. That’s where Annie, in her own words, “snuck one on the jack” and then waited nervously to see if it would hold for the victory. It did. A couple of observers remarked that it was among the best games they’d ever witnessed. Annie then handily won her final two matches, emerging as the day’s only undefeated competitor and punching her ticket to Florida.
With Jim Corr’s matching honors from last month’s Men’s Playdowns, BLBC can now proudly lay claim to having BOTH of our division’s singles participants in this fall’s prestigious event in Florida. Annie and Jim are superb bowlers and we’re extremely pleased for – and proud of – both of them!
Congratulations, Annie. You’ve put in the work over the years, so you’ve earned this reward. Best of luck in Sun City!
