State Junior Varsity Tournament Shows Promise for the Future

The Warren Mott Junior Varsity boys and girls competed in the Michigan Junior Varsity State Championship Tournament on February 21st and 22nd and showed some real promise that the bowling future at Warren Mott is very bright. The competition, held at Century Bowl in Waterford, brought schools from all over the state to compete in the singles and team competition to crown champions for 2004.

In the boy's singles division Kyle Kovach, yes the coach's son, was the lone qualifier from the Junior Marauder side. His qualifying score of 575 put him in 27th place and in the field of 32 for match play competition. Kyle's first match would be against the 14th seeded Doug Best. Kyle rolled a fine 234 game to win his match and move into the round of 16, against the 3rd seed Matt Ball. Kyle had a few problems adjusting to the changing lane conditions and Matt Ball took advantage of a break or two to roll a 203 game and defeat Kyle who finished with a 136 game.

Other Warren Mott Boy's participants were Bryan Cadavid (58th), Damon Betterton (60th), Nick Grenon (76th), Patrick Griffin (108th), Mike Kusmierz (114th) and Andrew Kelly (119th). These boys put everything they had into this tournament and performed very well, many of them bowling in a statewide tournament for the very first time.

The Lady Junior Marauders also competed in the singles side of the tournament and had two of them advance to the match play round of competition. Senior captain Erika Wagner squeaked in at 27th position and Sherry Linton captured the 13th spot. In match play, Erika faced the 6th seed Stacey Dzendzel in the opening round. This match went back and forth until the tenth frame when Erika, needing only a mark to win the match opened in the frame and Stacey took advantage and made her spare to win the match 166-163. Erika bowled extremely well all season since switching from right handed to left handed over the summer and this tournament showed she has arrived as a quality bowler, with either hand.

Sherry Linton faced the 20th seed, Emily Byrnes, in the first round and she bowled the best game of her bowling career shooting a 179 to defeat Emily and move onto the second round to face 4th seeded Aimee Melliza from Sterling Heights. Aimee opened the match by throwing the first four strikes which seemed to rattle Sherry a bit but, she hung in there making spares and hoping to catch a break as the game went on however, Aimee was too strong for that to happen as Sherry fell in the second round by a score of 185-128.

Other girl's getting in on the action were Annie Lange (43rd), Nicole Bowmer (50th), Michelle Howard (61st) and Courtney Sitko (66th). All the girls performed well and this bodes very well for the future at Warren Mott for the ladies teams. These ladies came in this season with very little experience and have done well adapting to coaching and meeting the pressure of meet and tournament competition.

In the team event the boys did not fair as well as we had hoped. Coming into the tournament as defending state champions, the Junior Marauders bowled their best but fell short of making the match play cut and relinquished their state title to the team from Ferndale. The ladies however qualified seventh in the baker game qualifying and worked their way into the team match play competition. The Lady Junior Marauders first faced the tenth seeded ladies from Brighton. Warren Mott made a good share of their spares and struck when they had to and defeated Brighton 3 games to 1 to advance to the round of eight where perennial powerhouse, and thorn in our side, Milford was waiting.

The ladies from Warren Mott started strong as they won the opening match 159-119 but Milford won the next match 166-139 to square up the series. The third game proved to be the turning point as Milford watched as Warren Mott's anchor bowler missed a spare in the tenth and then their anchor struck on the final ball to win by one pin 148-147. Milford then charged out in the fourth and final game to upend the Lady Junior Marauders 3 games to 1. The girls all gained some very valuable experience during this tournament and really held together well as a team. Disappointed with only a top eight finish but encouraged that they can compete, even at this early stage of their bowling careers, with the likes of Milford.

Next up will be the divisional singles tournament being held at Pampa Lanes on Thursday, February 26, 2004. We hope to crown some champions out of the divisional meet to help cap off what has been a very good season.