Long waits preceded the efforts of local athletes vying for New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships honors in bowling and gymnastics.
In the case of bowlers from East Syracuse Minoa, the boys Spartans had claimed the overall sectional team title on Feb. 5, but finally got to the state tournament at AMF Gates Lanes in Rochester a full month later.
In Saturday’s team competition, the Spartans were ninth with a pinfall of 5,229. Dan Marriott bowled all six games, a steady 1,169 effort where his two best games of, 214 and 223 came at the end of the six-game session.
Mike Sicilia had a 983 series (214 high game), while Hunter Borkowski had games of 233 and 225 at the outset before his scores decreased. ESM did best with 949 in the first game and 969 in the second game before games of 889, 787, 816 and 819 the rest of the way.
A day later, sectional All-Star teams battled in the second part of the state tournament, and with ESM’s Haley Youker on hand, Section III finished seventh with a pinfall of 5,292 as Section II claimed the top spot at 5,977.
Youker, who bowled a 300 game on the same day as Borkowski early in January at Strike-N-Spare Lanes, would shoot a 236 in her fourth game at the state tournament, the ninth-best game of the day. That, to go along with games of 171, 180, 153, 199 and 170, put her at 1,109 overall, 15th in the individual standings, four pins ahead of Utica Proctor’s Jennifer Roback (1,105).
North Rockland (Section I) took the team title with 5,743, beating out East Islip (Section XI) by one pin for that top spot while also finishing second (5,607) to Colonie (5,661) in a tight battle for the girls state team championship as Section III’s representative, Fulton, finished eighth with 4,581.
Meanwhile, Section III gymnasts had conducted their regular season in the fall, but had to wait more than four months before deciding state championships last Saturday at Shaker High School near Albany.
Section III, as a team, finished third with 176.625 points behind Section VI (184.375 points) and Section XI (181.85 points). Jamesville-DeWitt/F-M’s Taylor Fishkin was eighth in the all-around standings with 35.90 points as Miranda Lund (Section VIII) won with 37.60 points.
On the individual apparatus, Fishkin tied for 10th in the vault, going 9.25, while her 9.00 balance beam routine left her tied for ninth place as she also got 10th place on floor exercise (8.95) and 15th place on uneven bars (8.70).
