To culminate its 2016-17 season, bowlers from Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool joined the other top high school teams and individuals at Strike-N-Spare Lanes last Sunday for the annual Section III championships, with the boys Northstars and girls Warriors earning top-10 team finishes.
In fact, the C-NS boys got close to the Class A team championship, posting a score of 5,132 to finish third in that division, just 122 pins behind Fulton, who won with 5,254 and Rome Free Academy was second with 5,163.
Everyone had to deal with lane conditions at Strike-N-Spare far more difficult than in the regular season, and adjustments were made, but scores remained low.
In the six-game tournament, the Northstars shot 2,620 in the morning session, peaking with a 901 total in the third game. Moving to the afternoon session, C-NS gained a total of 938 in the fifth game, but totals of 779 and 795 in the other two games kept them from rising in the standings.
Still, Zach Emm finished fourth among individuals with a pinfall of 1,181, doing most of his damage during a 630 morning session as Camden’s Andrew Bourgeois had the top individual total of 1,334, averaging 222.33 per game. Josh Cloute was 22nd with a total of 1,056, with Josh Archer getting a total of 1,011.
Meanwhile, Liverpool’s boys team was 14th overall with a team score of 4,828, twice scoring 870 in the second and fourth games. Owen Rogers had the best individual effort, with a six-game total of 860.
In the race for the overall sectional team title, East Syracuse Minoa, who has all of its regular-season matches at Strike-N-Spare, led from the second game onward and pulled away in the final game to win with 5,300, beating runner-up Homer by 181 pins.
Moving to the girls sectional tournament, Liverpool hoped to follow up its unlikely CNY Counties League regular-season title with a sectional championship run, but settled for sixth place overall and fifth among Class A teams.
After a 795 opening game, the Warriors shot 735 and 721 in the other two games of the morning session. Liverpool did better in the afternoon session with games of 837, 845 and 848 to finish with a pinfall of 4,800 as Fulton, with 5,163, edged Utica Proctor (5,120) for the top spot.
C-NS was right behind Liverpool with a team score of 4,687 that peaked with a 900 total in the fifth game. Kaitilin Antinelli paced the Northstars on an individual basis, shooting 1,046 with a high game of 193 to finish 19th, five spots ahead of Liverpool’s Dailyn McCarthy, who had a 206 in her final game to finsh at 1,006.
