The fall of 2008 will always evoke memory lanes for Eric Owens — and a reminder of the power of the mind.

As he prepares to begin his college career this semester at Chattanooga State, the 2007 Ooltewah High School graduate has been working for several weeks at Holiday Bowl Brainerd, where he already spent most of his Friday nights and Saturday mornings.

The Friday night of Oct. 24 was particularly memorable for him. The 19-year-old Owens followed a 277 game with his first sanctioned 300 and a 279 for a dazzling 856 series in the Concord Mixed and Youth League.

That set a record for a junior bowler (up to age 21) in a Chattanooga Area Bowling Association center and was one of the highest series ever rolled in the area.

Michael Shipley had the previous CABA junior record of 828, rolled also in the Concord league in April 2006. Chris Massengale’s 824 in May 2006 is the only other CABA junior 800 series recorded.

“I’d bowled a lot of 279 games before, missing just one strike, and I had a 777 series two years ago,” Owens said recently, “but I guess I was in the right mindset that night.”

He said he missed a strike midway through the first game and then had “18 or 19 in a row,” carrying him through the perfect game. He spared the first frame of game three and then got back on a strike roll into the 10th frame, where he nine-spared after one last strike.

Asked if it was hard to stay focused after the 300, Owens said, “No. I just shrugged off that eight (setting up the opening spare in the third game) and got back to what I was doing.

“It was all about my mindset. I didn’t let anything bother me.”

Said Scott Nesbitt, one of the veterans in the Concord league: “If you’re 550 or beyond after two games, you’re not going to let your mind wander too far. He was 223 away from an 800.”

Nesbitt said the entire league was electrified as Owens made his bid to complete the 300 and then the 800-plus series.

“Six lanes is all there is of us,” Nesbitt said. “I looked over about midway through that second game and saw what he had going. You see a line of strikes and you start paying attention. And they still had his first game showing, and when he finished the 300 I said, ‘Man, he’s got 577 at the turn.’”

Owens rolled a 674 the next morning in the Prime Time junior league, and he followed his 856 with a 703 the next Friday in the Concord league, where he had a 213 average for 2007-08.

Owens said he’s been bowling “seven or eight years” and, although he’s a big guy, avoids power flings and big, sweeping hooks.

“I’m more of a consistent type, with a nice, slow ball,” he said.

He’s made general improvement, he said, because he’s “following through on my shot and not taking my spares for granted.”