When New York State’s top high school bowlers gather at the OnCenter next month for the state championship tournament, Cicero-North Syracuse boys star Tim Cloonan will be with them.
Cloonan earned his spot on Section III’s All-Star team with his second-place finish in last Friday’s Section III Shootout at Pin-O-Rama in Utica, beating all but one other bowler in the field of 28.
The lane conditions were as tough as they were during the Feb. 4 sectional tournament at Strike-N-Spare Lanes, so any average better than 200 was going to stand out.
In his first game, Cloonan shot 199, and fell to a 172 in the second game. But with a 237 in the third game, Cloonan rose from 12th to second place midway through the tournament.
And it got better. By shooting 220 and 215 in the fourth and fifth games, Cloonan reached the top of the standings. Needing just a 178 to advance to the state tournament in his final game, Cloonan easily reached that mark with a 203.
Only the work of Indian River’s E.J. Melia prevented a victory. With a final 237, Melia’s aggregate of 1,279 beat Cloonan’s 1,272 by seven pins, but both were on their way to the OnCenter.
The one bad part about Melia’s charge was that it kept Cloonan’s teammate, Nick Bough, from the state tournament, as Bough had started with games of 193 and 192 before improving to 216 and 223 in the middle of the shootout and a had a 190 in the fifth game.
In doing so, Bough had risen from 11th place to second place, and he shot 204 in the final game, only to get passed by Melia as, with a 1,247, Bough was third, 25 pins behind Cloonan.
C-NS also had Zach Emm in the field, and he had a six-game total of 1,161 that put him in 13th place. Emm’s high game was 213.
The sectional All-Star team for the state tournament includes Cloonan and Mejia, plus the regular-season average leaders of four leagues – Oswego’s Eric Carson (Salt City Athletic Conference), Sauquoit Valley’s Kaleb Elliott (Center State Conference), Homer’s Nick Hinshaw (Onondaga High School League) and Vernon-Verona-Sherrill’s Bryce Bechtel (Tri-Valley League).
Meanwhile, in the girls sectional shootout, C-NS’s Carly Lescenski finished 16th, with a six-game total of 877 and high game of 173. Liverpool’s Ashley Hardy had an 864 (high game of 167) to finish 19th.
