Two of East Syracuse Minoa’s top bowlers were part of the Section III All-Star teams that competed Sunday in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship tournament at Airport Lanes in Cheektowaga, near Buffalo – and Haley Youker nearly brought home the big prize.
Youker finished second by a tiny margin of three pins among the individuals in Sunday’s portion of the state tournament, where all-star teams from each of the 11 sections in the state battled for top honors.
During the first half of the six-game session, Youker had games of 172, 194 and 181, and was far from the top spot. But in the second part of the session Youker started stringing together strikes, earning games of 242 and 215.
Still, Youker was 90 pins back of Amanda Naujokas (Section XI) going into the sixth and final game, Youker promptly rolled her best game of the day, a 245, and it nearly made up the ground as Naujokas struggled to a 158 – but held on to win the individual tournament, 1,252 to Youker’s 1,249. Alex Copey (Section V) was third with 1,232.
As a team, Section III finished third, led by Youker and Holland Patent’s Jenna Rose Harrrington, who made her way to 10th place with a 236 high game and 1,122 series. The team had 5,686, just 16 pins behind Section XI (5,702), while Section II won with 5,778.
Clinton’s Meghan Doris shot a 1,087 aggregate and finished 19th, one pin ahead of Fulton’s Megan Guernsey (1,086) in 20th place. Then New Hartford’s Adrianna Ryan had a 1,083 to get 23rd place as Auburn’s Kaylee Hodson was 42nd with a 1,002 total.
On the boys side, the Spartans’ Dan Marriott joined a squad that included Andrew Kopec (Auburn), Kyle Denson (Fulton), Robert Kinville (New York Mills), Andrew Bourgeois (Camden) and Nick Cohen (Utica Proctor).
During his high game of 248, Marriott, who rolled back-to-back 300 games in February, converted the first seven strikes and hinted at perfection, but settled for a 248 on his way to a six-game total of 1,245 that put him in 13th place among individuals, averaging 207.5 per game as he also had games of 215, 212, 153, 187 and 230.
Section III, as a whole, was in a close race for the top spot, leading after the morning session, but falling back it finished third, just 29 pins behind Section I for the second spot. Section XI won, 198 pins ahead of Section III.
Kopec got recognized for his 264 high game and, with a 1,346, finished third among individuals as Adam Zimmerman (Section XI) won with a pinfall of 1,415. Denson was sixth, with a 1,300, while Kinville had a 1,154 (28th place), Bourgeois had a 1,121 (35th place) and Cohen had a 1,086 (41st place).
