The 17-year-old right-hander put together 12 straight strikes in the middle game during the T.F. Brown’s Adult-Child League at Mancuso Bowling Center. His other games were 208 and 209, giving him a personal-best 717 series.
-----------------
For more local and national bowling news, check out Mike Pettinella’s Pin Points bowling column that appears every Thursday exclusively on The Batavian.
-----------------
Using a MOTIV Venom Shock ball (the only ball in his possession besides a plastic spare ball), the Batavia High School senior bettered his previous high game of 279 – and can claim his USBC award for his first 300 as a youth bowler. He also will be eligible for a USBC adult award when he posts his first perfect game after the age of 18.
He is the second local teen to roll his first 300 game in the past two weeks; classmate Tony Sprague registered 300 on Feb. 16 at Medina Lanes.
Johnson, who bowls in the doubles league with his father, Mike, said he wasn’t nervous.
“Once I got to the 10th frame, I noticed after the first ball what I was going for,” he said. “I was thinking just make a good shot. If I made a good shot and I didn’t strike, I couldn’t really be mad.”
Mike Johnson, a lefty, has several 300 games and four 800 series, and Kyle’s brother, Bryan, also had a 300 game (which he rolled as a 19-year-old on March 2014).
Kyle said he got back into bowling recently after an 18-month layoff, but found that he was having problems with his release.
He said that a trip to Lightning Strikes Pro Shop in Rochester, owned by Chris Lamb, resulting in changing the pitch of his finger holes.
“My ring finger is a lot shorter than my middle finger, so we had to take an eighth of an inch back towards my thumb on my ring finger and leave my middle finger in the same spot,” he said. “Before that, it was catching on my thumb, and I was squeezing the ball.”
Johnson says he plans to compete in the Brockmyre Classic singles scratch tournament in Newark this weekend – an event that traditionally features a very challenging oil pattern.
“We’ll give it a try,” he said. “It will be good experience.”
MICKEY HYDE ROLLS 300 IN LE ROY
On several occasions over his 15 years as a regular league bowler at his hometown Le Roy Legion Lanes, Mickey Hyde came oh so close to perfection. He’s had 298 and 299 games, but never could seal the deal.
All that changed last Thursday night when the 53-year-old righty placed 12 consecutive balls in the pocket – and carried them all – for a 300 game in the Le Roy American Legion Men’s League. He finished with a 741 series on lanes 1-2.
“I used the original (Hammer) Black Widow ball that was drilled about 14 years ago by Bill Beachner (then at Perry Bowling Center),” Hyde said. “It feels really good to finally get one here.”
Hyde, manager of Tompkins Bank of Castile in Le Roy, had a 300 in 2010 at Scopano’s Lanes in Oakfield.
He won the Genesee Region USBC Senior Masters at Mount Morris Lanes in November, and has enjoyed success in a variety of tournaments over the years.
While the 300 topped the “high game” list in the league last Thursday, his 741 was second-best to the 749 posted by his nephew, Shayne Herold.
