LIVERPOOL – A lot of competition remained – five games, to be precise, a full morning and afternoon with hundreds of shots taken and thousands of pins yet to fall.
Yet in a single game Sunday morning at Liverpool’s Flamingo Bowl, the Baldwinsville girls bowling team stated its claim as the best in the Section III ranks and only made it more emphatic the rest of the way.
When the competition had ended, the Bees, with a total of 5,884, had rolled to the sectional Division I championship, earning a return trip to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association team tournament in March at Strike-N-Spare Lanes.
Fulton finished second, but was 531 pins behind a B’ville side which posted four of the top eight individual series from the quartet of Julia Speich, Jenna Speich, Sam Hass and Maddy Hass.
Yet it all stemmed from that opening game, where Julia Speich nearly reached perfection, her 10 strikes part of a 279 that would remain the best individual game anyone would post for the day.
Meanwhile, Jenna Speich shot a 232, with Sam Hass getting a 222. Those scores, along with a 189 from Maddy Hass and 181 from Lizzy Hildreth, produced a team total of 1,099, immediately putting B’ville nearly 200 pins clear of Fulton’s 907.
And it only got more pronounced as the morning went on. B’ville scored 1,006 in the second game and 1,050 in the third to go to the break with 3,155, leaving Fulton 351 pins behind.
During the afternoon, as B’ville put up games of 905, 970 and 854 and only saw the margin increase, the only suspense involved who would take individual honors at this tournament.
Julia Speich’s 240 and 223 that followed her 279 gave her a 742 morning series. She would also shoot a 224 in the afternoon, but in between games of 174 and 171.
Finishing at 1,309, Speich could only watch as Christian Brothers Academy’s Eliana Occhino, who opened with 268 but followed with 226 and 173 in the morning, put up a 664 series in the afternoon and, at 1,331, prevailed by 22 pins.
Sam Hass finished fourth, with a 207, 200 and 212 in the middle of her series to finish at 1,200, while Jenna Speich had a 245 third game as the highlight of her fifth-place 1,198 series.
Also doing well, Maddy Hass went 200-216-201 in the second through fourth games and, with 1,138, got to eighth place. Hildreth had her best game at the end, a 199 that pulled her up to 17th place at 1,039.
