<< Front page Sports February 20, 2004

Club Corner

Bowlers travel to neighboring Michigan to roll

Just one week into the semester, the men and women of Oberlin’s Intercollegiate Bowling Team have completed 30 games of tournament play in separate events each of the past two weekends.

Sixteen bowlers traveled to Ann Arbor last Friday to spend Valentine’s Day competing in the Association of College Unions International Region 7 Recreation Tournament. The event was hosted by the University of Michigan, with the bowling taking place at nearby Chelsea Lanes.

Junior Mike McComb topped the Oberlin bowlers in the first game with a 209 score, one of several personal bests the Yeo-bowlers notched during the two-day contest. Entered in the Recreational category, designed for bowlers who have not previously appeared on an intercollegiate roster, McComb toppled 1291 pins over the course of nine games on his way to bringing the first place gold medal back to campus. Oberlin has begun to dominate this event, which current senior Peter Wyatt won last year.

Senior Meghan Grammer opened Saturday’s sixth and final game with five consecutive strikes, finishing with a 219 score that helped propel the Oberlin women’s team to within 150 total pins of the hometown Michigan squad, which ended the day in fourth place. First-year Marne Litfin, third overall among woman bowlers with a 560 series for the first three games, exploded with a 236 tally during Sunday’s second game. Juniors K. Strickler and Jessy Bradish contributed 181 and 180 scores respectively to the team’s weekend-best game of 835. Litfin eventually finished sixth in women’s singles with a 181 average for the tournament. Michigan State won the women’s team event, while MSU’s Allie Cichon won the women’s individual all-events title. Oberlin finished in fifth place.

Senior Adam Czernikowski led the Oberlin men during Saturday’s first three-game series with a 553 total on the strength of a 211 high game. Czernikowski finished the competition tied for 30th place overall with a 176 average, the highest of Oberlin’s five men in the Individual competition event separate from the Team and Recreational categories.

Oberlin’s men’s squad started fairly slowly but finished with a flourish, averaging 192 per bowler per game for Sunday’s final three-game set. The explosion included a 1015 score in the last game, Oberlin’s first 1000-plus tally in several years. Senior Adam Freeman, 23rd overall in the men’s individual all-events with a 199 weekend average, notched his first-ever 600 series with a 602 on Saturday night. Propelled by that success, he rolled games of 200, 256, Oberlin’s highest single game of the tourney, and 210 on Sunday for a 666 series. Senior Justin Heiman contributed a 603 series on Sunday, while senior Andrew Falk’s 232 was the highest individual score in the team’s last game blast. Regional powerhouse Saginaw Valley State University won the men’s team event, while Saginaw’s Tony Lacaze won the men’s individual all-events title. Oberlin finished in 6th place.

Three squads of Yeo-bowlers traveled to Columbus the previous weekend for the conference championships of the American Heartland Intercollegiate Bowling Conference. The finals were contested on a grueling “Sport Shot” oil pattern, in which more oil than usual is applied to the outside edges of the lane and less oil is placed in the center. This type of oil pattern places a premium on accuracy and consistency, as it tends to magnify a bowler’s mistakes. Sport Shot scores tend to be much lower, as exemplified by Saginaw’s Lacaze being the only one of the 112 bowlers competing in the conference finals to average 200 or better.

Heiman led Oberlin bowlers with 1002 for six games, one pin ahead of Falk. Falk won five of six individual matches, finishing the season in 25th place in the conference with 125 points won, reflective of a match-play record of 12-11-1. Sophomore Vance Murphy won three matches. Litfin led Oberlin women with 858 pins for six games and two matches won.

The most exciting part of AHIBC meets tends to be the Baker games, in which each team member rolls two frames of a single score. The finals were no exception, as Grammer rolled two strikes and a nine-count in the first Baker game to carry Oberlin’s women’s team to a 165-159 victory. The women later rolled a 205 Baker game, Oberlin’s highest single score of the day, to defeat Ball State, who went on to win the championship of the women’s division.

In the eighth of 15 Baker games, Murphy spared in the tenth frame and followed with a nine-count to lead the Oberlin men’s ‘B’ team to a one pin victory over Kent State University, 132-131. The ‘B’ team finished the day by winning two of three matches over Oberlin’s ‘A’ squad. Saginaw prevailed to win the conference championship in the men’s division.

Oberlin’s next tournament will be on the newly refurbished lanes on the campus of Kent State on Sunday, March 7th.

Tom Reid is the coach of the intramural bowling team.


 
 
   

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