PBA region pros Sam Zurich and Larry Barwick charged to victory in the latest ABC/Brunswick World Team Challenge. In addition, key shots by anchorman Norm Titus, Dave Tessman, and Mike Tagariella helped the Kegel Training Center team defeat the Storm X-Men team 376-364 in the opening match-play competition of the tournament's finals and claimed ultimate victory in with this latest Challenge 429-405 over Brazeau's Pro Shop for $3,450 split five ways. Since the PBA National Tour was on a long hiatus until October, the sum was minimal and good for gas money, but it entitles the winners to compete for more money and benefits in the BWTC Grand Championship in Las Vegas Nov. 10-14. Former PBA national touring pro Sam Zurich, who would express his satisfaction to Hall of Fame commentator Chris Schenkel on ABC-TV for a tourney victory back in the 1970s when 9/11 was simply another day in September, still has that same exuberance today about winning, even with much less exposure and prestige in St. Petersburg.
"We're really excited because it's been a long time since we've been to the winner's circle in this particular tournament," Zurich beamed. "I'm looking forward to a great trip for the finals in Vegas. Kegel Training Center is a wonderful facility and all of the players on our team had the opportunity to get there and work on their games. It really shows and helped us to win here so we're excited to have them as a sponsor and we know it makes a difference and everyone should take heed and workout at Kegel's facility where you can scrutinize every aspect of your game to overcome your problems. They work you hard and they give you the best bang for the buck."
Zurich said his team never gave up even though they were 100 pins behind with three teams to play and the single-pin victory they scored was a real nail-biter.
"We bowled four games into match play and we were on the dead bottom. Then there was a transition with the lane conditions with carry down of dressing, and we really got adjusted and exploded into a scoring flurry and we came together as a team. We got lucky because our anchorman Norm was phenomenal all weekend because he got a clutch strike in the 10th frame in our first match to win for us and when we bowled the last couple of matches, the other teams beat themselves and we beat them because we won the first match by a pin thanks to our anchor but the other team could have struck out to beat us so we got lucky. It makes you swing easier knowing you have a solid anchorman on your team who can perform. It was a challenging shot because when you thought you were lined up, the ball would nose into the heart of the pins."
Defending champion Top of the Line Pool Service featuring former PBA touring pros Tom Milton and Kent Wagner started Saturday's qualifying position as the top seed but that position was captured for Sunday's finals by Kegel Training Center. Zurich attributes his team's rise to victory to the balance they have among teammates' abilities.
"Our team is a good balance of old-timers like Larry Barwick and a couple of new players on the team who were very special for us in Mike Tagariella and Dave Tessman who bowled extremely well all week."
Larry Barwick said 2001 was a real oddessy for the Kegal Training Center which was originally known as "Herbie's in the Sky" because his team was brought down to earth without a victory on any of the BWTC national stops.
"In 1999 we were third and in 2000 we were second," Barwick claimed. "In 2001 we had two second places without a win and this year we bowled in the Team Challenges twice finishing fifth once and then sixth. We were in eighth place this time around with three matches to go and we stayed in focus and we couldn't strike and dug a hole for ourselves in the first five matches but in spite of our bad breaks, we're looking to win it all in 2002 since we won this tournament. We were down 100 pins with three matches to go and that's when we really turned it on and won. We lost to Contour Grips before and we got one win here in 1997 and then we lost to them in '98 and '99 so we returned the favor and we owed them a payback because they are good friends of ours and we enjoy beating them in competition."
Mike Tagariella finally found the satisfaction he was seeking in search of a tournament victory when he joined Kegel and he said his team's win was the perfect springboard to competing in the prestigious Hoinke tournament two weeks later.
"I'm going to bowl at the Hoinke in Cincinnati next since I finally got a backer so this is a good warmup for me," Tagariella said. "This tournament was beautiful and I loved it because I finally got on a team where I could win. I've been cashing all of the time but I was never able to get what I wanted until now. I knew we were going to win because we had good chemistry to begin with and we picked up a guy to replace a bowler on this team who was injured and that definitely helped. We just clicked and dug deep. We weren't even in it with two games to go so we bowled a 500 and a 490 and went to second place so we dug even deeper and won by a single stick and we beat the best team in the field. It was a storybook ending for sure!"
PBA Senior Region Pro Ron Woods recovered from prostate cancer and has constructive advice for the rest of us. He says that after the age of 50 men should get yearly check-ups unless cancer runs in your family and then you need to start 10 years sooner.
Woods' father Thomas died of the same disease at the age of 61 so his passing would frequently remind Ron to see his doctor. His doctor's detection occurred in 1997 and his prostate was removed the following year and since then he has been cancer free.
"It was quite a run for me because I had two 300s and finished second at the region stop in Spring Hill in '97 just before my cancer was discovered and I lost to Jason Couch in that tournament and I lost one more immediately after that to Roger Tramp in the next tournament stop. When I was in my hospital bed hooked up to 14 tubes for the treatments, my mind went over and over the losses by repeatedly re-living how and why I lost those two tournaments and I didn't think about anything else. It was a diversion I created for myself to get me through it all and in my case it worked well."
Woods said he never felt sorry for himself throughout the whole ordeal but he has sympathy for others who suffer from various forms of cancer.
"I never had the 'Why me?' attitude, but I wanted to beat my cancer instead and it brought out the competitor inside of me. After I recovered I told my story to the local TV news and the papers and I want to stress to everyone how important check-ups are and also money for research. Prostate cancer parallels breast and colon cancer because the early symptoms are frequently not detectable, and sometimes it's too late when you find out."
Financing cancer prevention projects is one of the keys to turning back the high tide of this killer and $430 million has been spent this year in cancer research. According to the American Cancer Society 39,500 people died of cancer in Florida alone as an example of how many lives have been lost per state. Woods stressed that early detection does work because the national number of deaths from cancer had decreased 27 percent in 2001 because of early detection but he emphasized that more research for cures is essential since there are so many different sources of the disease from the culture in which we live.