By Willie Theis
The poster you see here is a window allowing readers a quick gander at some all top-notch bowling scores and achievements that have taken place at the Virgin River Bowling Center going back to when it opened in 1998.
And one of the first things you will notice is in the last two seasons three different bowlers actually rolled a jaw-dropping 800 series. Amazingly, after opening in 1998, it took seemingly forever before Scott Mattingly’s 809 bowled on June 9th, 2023 was the first-ever 800 series rolled at the VRBC. Yes, in stark contrast to the lane conditions and bowling ball equipment bowlers faced in those early years made honor scores pretty darn rare.
And to help illustrate that point, Bob Field’s 300 game in 2006 was only the third 300 game in the eight (not a type) years of league bowling. Bab-bee! Well, Sal Diaz alone fired three 300 games in the 2024-2025 season. Wow!
And as a salute to all the 300s, and especially those in the early years we made lotsa phone calls and spent some serious energy making sure we’d get pictures and the like so we could include all the 300s bowled at this center.
And we also made a special emphasis at including women’s outstanding achievements beginning with Bev Cormani being the first woman to ever throw a 700 series at the VRBC, a 716 in 2021. Again, to put her record-setting feat in context, women have also been bowing in leagues since 1998. And with her signature outing in her bowling to date, she cemented her status as one of the top bowlers in the pantheon of top-notch women bowlers in Mesquite bowling lore.
By the way, if you wanna get a copy of this poster you should know you can request a full size one or any of a number of smaller sized ones. All you’d need to go is go to Clark Count Printing in Mesquite and they will be happy to run that baby off for you. Samantha at Clark Count Printing did a superb job putting this poster together with her design of it.
I will update this baby next year because it’s a layup that more 300s will surely be rolled, and let’s hope the same for 800s and 700s.
I will see you right back here in September!