Hong Kong Day 1 results

I wanted to post sooner, but while they have business center here that has internet access, it closes at 6 PM weekdays and 4 PM on weekends. 

The first day has been completed and here is how the USA temas stand.

The cutoff to make the Cup tournament was 19 points. 

The Stars team captained by Neil Furman scored 15 points (2, 4, 5, 2, 2) and will be in the Plate portion.

The Stripes team captained by Jim Olsen scored 22 points and has qualified for the Cup portion.

I didn't get a lot of details from the Stripes team, but I know that they only scored 1 point in the first game but came on strong in the later games.

As for the Stars team, we actually won the second game, but because of the skins format, we only got 4 points.  All of the games that we played were against local Hong Kong clubs, including the Hong Kong Police Club, except for one game against a team from Australia, which was the one game that we scored 5 points on.  The game against the Australians was the one that we all as a group bowled the best, and definitely for me individually.  It was a back and forth game, with 1 point being scored in every end, but three where 2 was scored.  They are a bunch of good guys and there was a lot of laughs and fun, even in such an incredibly tight game.  I think that contributed to us bowling well.

On the whole, I think we all agreed that we bowled ok, but could definitely bowl better.  We also had some rotten luck, or our opponents had some great luck, depending on your point of view.  But that's how bowls go.  We are all hoping that tomorrow the luck will run our way and we will do well in the Plate portion.

Only 4 teams qualify from the 6 groups in the Plate portion, so going 5-0 is the goal, and while unlikely, it is possible that a 5-0 team might not qualify for the playoffs.

I'll try to get on again tomorrow night at some point to post the results for both teams.  I don't know what I'll be able to do in China, as I hear they are not too internet-friendly there.  I will try.

The Hong Kong awards ceremony will be tomorrow night.  The day after (Monday) we will take a bus into China, with practice in the afternoon.  Then matches on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Thanks for all of the support.  We can feel it from here and we're all trying our best to do our country proud.