Huron bowlers bring home two regional crowns
Rogers City bowlers were celebrating twin victories at the state regionals in Gaylord Saturday. Both boys and girls teams were on top at the end of competition. The Rogers City boys fell 95 pins behind Traverse City St. Francis after the six Baker games, sitting in fourth place at that point. It didn’t take long to show everyone that the boys had come to bowl after they rolled a 1,029 in the first regular game and moved into second place behind St. Francis. The Gladiators came right back, bowling a game of 1,034 to the Hurons 974, leaving Rogers City 120 pins out of first place and only one game to go.
Both teams rolled their low games for the day with the Hurons at 934 and the Gladiators at 795, giving the Hurons their second regional championship. The final point tally was Rogers City 4,052 and Traverse City St. Francis 4,024.
“THE BOYS did a great job in the regular games. It was nice to turn the tables on Traverse City (St. Francis) after our loss to them in the state finals last year,” said coach Brian Bannasch. “Now we have to focus on the finals. The format there is single elimination; we cannot afford any low Baker scores in the finals,” he continued.
The Huron girls team went back and forth against Ewen Trout Creek (ETC) all day before finally prevailing in the final game to win the regional by only six pins. The final tally was 3,019-3,013. It was sweet revenge for the Hurons as they lost the regional title to ETC last year in what has become a regional rivalry between the two teams. “This is a great win for the girls. After so many close losses during the regular season, it was exciting to see them put it all together and win by just six pins,” said Bannasch.
HE NOTED that it was especially nice to have the Darga family on hand for the victory as Tony Darga was the girls’ squad coach last year and was looking forward to this season when he lost his life in a work-related accident last summer. “The girls committed themselves to winning this title for Tony and to do that with the family present was an emotional high for everyone there,” the coach explained.
The Hurons produced three individual state finals qualifiers during the tournament. Ben Basel took fourth place overall for the boys while Heather Kowalski and Alicia Lamb grabbed third and fifth place respectively for the girls. Basel got off to a good start bowling 688 for the first three games and leading the field at that point. Coach Bannasch said, “Making the state finals was a goal of Ben’s this year after just missing the cut last year. He worked really hard to accomplish that goal this year.”
BOTH OF THE girls’ qualifiers avoided bowling the bad game that had plagued them all year. Kowalski had a low game of 154 and high game of 190. Lamb had a low game of 137 but backed it up with two games of 190. Kowalski will be making her second appearance in the state finals after a Top 16 finish last year. Bannasch said
Freshman Ryan Darga had an impressive showing in his first regional competition, placing eleventh and missing the finals by only 18 pins. Senior Ray Coseo bowled consistently all day, finishing 14th overall. He had a low game of 174 and a high game of 211 but he could not get that big game to put him in the finals. Jake Bellmore finished 34th overall.