Without a doubt, the Baldwinsville boys bowling team was pumped up about starting a new season of matches at Strike-N-Spare Lanes.
Yet even in its most optimistic of forecasts, the Bees could not have possibly imagined having two perfect games before the first week of competition was over.
That’s exactly what Ryan Calkins and Ryan Kratz pulled off in the course of wins over Fayetteville-Manlius and Utica Proctor, providing memorable bookends to a 2-0 start.
Calkins, a junior, wasted little time establishing his credentials in the 5-2 win over F-M last Wednesday afternoon.
All of Calkins’ first 12 shots found the pocket — and each time, all 10 pins fell, a 300 game to start the season. That propelled Calkins to a 745 series, and he was far from done.
In the Proctor match 24 hours later, Calkins took another perfect game into the 10th frame on his way to a 261, then came within one pin on the final ball of another masterpiece before getting 299. All told, it was a 763 series, the best in the league this week.
As Calkins was piling up strikes, Kratz, a sophomore, had quiet games of 197 and 192 in the Proctor match before starting to get hot in the third game.
Since the Raiders arrived late due to winter storms, every other match was done by the time Kratz arrived in the 10th frame, still clean. As all activity ceased and the tension was at its highest, Kratz coolly struck in the 10th three consecutive times for his own dose of perfection.
