submitted by Coach Bob Lang
The Hoosick Falls bowling team finished second out of 29 teams on Friday, February 6, at Boulevard Bowl in Schenectady in the Sectionals. Fort Edward won the championship with a six game total for five bowlers of 5,778 followed by Hoosick Falls with 5,669, Canajoharie – 5,509, Middleburg – 5,314 and Hoosic Valley – 5,212. Other local schools were Mechanicville in seventh place with 5,094 pins and Stillwater in 12th place with 4,752.
Hoosick Falls started with its worst game of the day in the morning with a 819, then progressed to get better each game and finished in second place at the end of the morning round. This meant that they would bowl against Fort Edward, the first place team, in the afternoon round. Hoosick Falls was down 160 pins going into the afternoon, which is not an impossible amount of pins to make up with three more games to bowl. After losing the first game in the afternoon round by 67 pins, Hoosick Falls came back and won the second game by 25 pins and the third game by 93 pins, winning the afternoon round by a total of 51 pins. But it wasn’t enough to make up the morning difference of 160 pins so the Panthers lost the overall total by 109 pins. Top bowler for Fort Edward was Nick Conlon with a six game total of 1,268.
Top bowlers for Hoosick Falls for six games were Kyla Day – 1,204, Josh McCart – 1,174, Kenneth Marbot – 1,118, A.J. Hurlburt – 1,102 and Eric Bloomer – 1,071. Jennifer Sargood and Jon Bossoni were members of the team but did not bowl. Kyla Day received the high game award for the tournament with a nice 274 game, and Josh McCart received the third high game for the tournament with a nice 254 game. Kyla Day also had the sixth highest six game total of 1,204 which means that she may be on the Sectional team if no bowlers from the A or the B schools beat her score.
“I was very proud how our team kept their patience during the entire day especially after we got off to such a bad start in the morning round. They knew that the oil pattern was going to be difficult, and they just had to keep their composure and stay focused. Our team is very good adjusting to changing oil patterns, and that is what makes Hoosick Falls such a good team from year to year because we are able to move to where the shot is for best results. Because our team bowls on a lot of different oil patterns throughout the year, it prepares them for situations like we had at the Sectional tournament. We bowled very well, but Fort Edward bowled great throughout the entire tournament only having one below par game at the end of the day. We will see them two more times in the coming week – on Tuesday at the League Championship Match and Thursday at the League Tournament. I’m sure that it will another great battle between these two equally talented teams,” said Coach Lang.