Local pins down
a perfect game

By JAKE POTTER

Terry Baxley seems like a normal, unassuming guy. But for a few minutes May 4 at 701 Lanes bowling alley, Baxley commanded utter silence.

“The whole place was dead quiet,” said Jimmy Evans, the alley’s general manager. “When it gets like that in here, you can… well, you can hear a pin drop.”

Not just one pin, though. A lot. Enough to earn Baxley a perfect game, the second of his 26-year amateur bowling career.

Evans said it was only the fourth perfect game rolled at the alley since 1954. The alley names lanes where bowlers roll perfect games in their honor. Baxley’s name is the first to repeat—he first drew 12 strikes in a row on lane seven in November 2000 while playing with the Kramer’s Men’s Shop team. The American Bowling Congress awarded him a ring for his display of talent.

Six years later, Baxley is all smiles while he rolls a few practice frames. He has refined his delivery into a stoic, graceful sweep that changes little from shot to shot. He’s wearing his old ring—the new one has yet to come in—and jokes that it is causing him to miss a few pins.

“Twelve strikes in a row is hard to do, brother,” he said. “I just take it one frame at a time. And I say a lot of prayers.”

Evans noticed one just before the tenth and final frame of Baxley’s most recent perfect game.

“He’s getting ready to shoot his last shot, and you can just see him go ‘whew,’” Evans said as he puffed the air out of his lungs, mimicking Baxley.

Baxley, who works at the North Whiteville Food Lion, said he knew he was “in the zone” a few frames into the night.

“I hit one (strike) on one side and one on the other, and I said, ‘Man, I think I’m going to try for a 300,’” he said.

“But then again, I say that every night, I guess.”

To bowl a perfect game at 701 is no easy task, Evans explained. The alley doesn’t use the synthetic floors popular on many lanes today.
“A regional pro came here to practice at one point, and he said, ‘If I could score here, I could score anywhere,’” Evans said.

Marvin McPherson was the first person to bowl a perfect game there. The only other person to successfully pull it off beside him and Baxley was Eric Senrette.

Robert Bullard came close, scoring a 299. Alley management named a lane after him anyway.

Evans and Baxley both said they have noticed a slow resurgence of the sport’s popularity in Whiteville. And both said Jeremy Cribb, who took ownership of 701 a year ago, has helped that resurgence along.

Cribb rolled a 257 the night Baxley got his perfect game. “We were all excited for him,” Cribb said.

Baxley said he was beyond elated, adding that he threw a few Tiger Woods fist-pumps after nailing the last strike.

“I don’t ever practice, I just don’t have time,” he said. “The only time I ever bowl is during league play on Thursdays.

“The bowling gods were really looking out for us that night.”