MATTYDALE – Ashley Hardy picked the perfect time to throw a perfect game.
The Liverpool girls bowler recorded the first 300 of her career and, by doing so, won the individual title and led Section III’s all-star team to championship honors during Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships at Strike-N-Spare Lanes.
But it wasn’t just a one-game performance. Hardy also had the best three-game series and fended off a late charge from Christian Brothers Academy’s Eliana Occhino to grab first place in the individual standings.
It all began with a first game that was close to perfect, Hardy recording 10 strikes while picking up a 279 to immediately establish the individual lead. Though tailing off a bit in the second game, Hardy still shot 236.
Then came the third game. Building upon what she had already done, Hardy put all 12 shots in the pocket – and all of them were strikes. It proved to be the only 300 game of the tournament on the girls side.
Having shot an astonishing 815 in the early session (a state tournament record), Hardy would return and shoot 201 before falling to a 140 in the fifth game.
Meanwhile, Occhino, who had her own 300 game earlier this season at Strike-N-Spare, had games of 247 and 250 in the middle of her set before a 213 in the fifth made up ground on Hardy.
The final game saw Occhino get 10 strikes of her own in a 278. That almost proved enough, but Hardy, with a closing 207, finished at 1,363, exactly one pin ahead of Occhino’s 1,362.
Hardy’s Liverpool teammate, Mackenzie Gill, shot games of 203, 196, 205, 162, 194 and 173, finishing with a six-game aggregate of 1,133, which put her in 29th place.
Helped by a 1,214 series from Alexis Ingersoll (Fulton), a 1,098 series from Jenavieve Lyon (West Canada Valley) and a 970 series from McKenzie Pantoia (Rome Free Academy), Section III finished at 6,244 overall, beating out Section V (6,168) by 76 pins for the team championship.
Earlier in the day, Liverpool boys bowler Zach Doing took part in his portion of the state tournament.
Shooting 163, 198 and 192 in the first session, Doing improved to 235 and 218 games in the second session, with a 190 in between, to finish at 1,196 overall and in 35th place.
Doing and the Section III team was sixth as Section V won with 6.710, just 34 points ahead of Section XI from Long Island. Jacob Willard (Section VI) and Matthew Sundberg (Section XI) each rolled 300 games as Willard was the individual champion with 1,429.
