State USBC Women’s Championship set

The 61st Annual Louisiana USBC Women’s Bowling Association Championship Tournament is set for the Shreveport-Bossier City area in January and February.

The tourney will take place Jan. 24-25, 31-Feb. 1, 7-8, 14-15, 28-March 1, 2009. There will be no bowling on Feb. 21-22 due to Mardi Gras.

Team event will take place at All Star Lanes in Shreveport with doubles and singles at Holiday Lanes in Bossier City.

Once again, the tournament will feature a 4-person team and 5-person team event. You may enter each event twice. You may also enter the doubles and singles twice with the understanding if you enter doubles you must enter singles and vice-versa.

Entry fees are $20 per event with $2 for Optional Handicap All Events and $7 for Optional Scratch All Events.

The tournament has been dedicated to former Louisiana State USBC Women’s Bowling Association Director Gerry Bertrand of Shreveport-Bossier City.

Deadline for entering the tournament is midnight on Sunday, Dec.14. Always check the entry blanks for all rules and regulations of the tournament.

According to a USBC news release, the number of achievements in regular competition increased only slightly during the 2007-08 season ending July 31, 2008.

USBC members in regular leagues and tournaments earned recognition for 52,229 perfect games, up just 672 from the 51,557 of the 2006-07 season. During 2007-08, there were 16,872 approved 800s, up only 237 from the 16,635 of the previous season. Those scores dropped for the first time in two decades in 2006-07.

In all, USBC recognized more than 1.5 million achievements in 2007-08. These included 57,491 for 11-strikes-in-a-row that includes former honor scores 299 and 298.

The most awards for special achievement came in the 200-game category with 266,088. Next was 75-pins-over-average game with 241,220.

Other outstanding awards were: Triplicates, 10,133, Big Four Splits, 2,130, 7-10 Splits, 1,862, All-Spare games, 3,526, Dutch 200 games, 2,020, 500 series, 67,346, 600 series, 127,365, 700 series, 99,042.

The United States Bowling Congress (USBC) had an overall membership of 2,482,785 for the recently-completed 2007-08 season, the organization’s third full year, according to a USBC news release.

USBC membership included 2,200,749 adults and 282,036 youths. There were 67,301 adult leagues and 11,456 youth leagues. Overall there were 78,757 leagues, 5,443 centers with 113,041 lanes.

Michigan again featured the most members of any USBC state association with 192,320 and Ohio was second with 145,838.

The 2007-08 season in Louisiana saw a combined USBC membership of 19,254 competing in 723 combined leagues in 31 bowling centers with a total of 912 lanes.

The adult membership in the state was 16,728, bowling in 614 leagues. The youth membership was 2,526 in 109 leagues.

At Bayou Pins Bowling Center in New Iberia there were 16 sanctioned leagues during the 2007-08 season competing on 28 lanes.

Dickie Broussard is the bowling writer for The Daily Iberian.