BOWLING

The HU bowling teams competed in the third Crossroads League Tournament on Saturday at the Jax 60 in Jackson, Mich. The tourney format was three team games followed by 12 Baker games. Three teams competed for the Foresters with the varsity women enjoying a fourth place finish, the varsity men also finishing fourth and the JV men taking fifth.

The Huntington women scored a total of 4643 for the tournament to pick up their fourth place finish out of eight teams. Amanda Turner led the Foresters with a 183 per game average to finish 14th out of 69 bowlers. As a team, the Foresters were consistent most of the day, holding the third spot until the end of the competition.

“The communication for the women is getting a lot better with each tournament,” said Coach Mike Shockey. “It is exciting to see the team able to start working on shot making and improving our scoring potential.”

On the men’s side, the JV squad bowled well despite being short-handed resulting in their fifth place finish out of five teams with a pin count of 2857. David Kowalski and David McLaughlin earned CL All-Tournament honors with 2nd and 3rd place finishes respectively. Kowalski averaged 209 for three team games while McLaughlin averaged 204.

“I’m happy with the JV guys’ performance this weekend. We only had three players available for JV and they fought hard every game. It was great to see the guys applying the lessons we’ve been working on in practice.”

The varsity men tallied 5348 pins behind Leland Jones who posted a 191 average for 19th place out of 72 bowlers. After struggling during the team games to get any sort of consistent carry, the Foresters came alive in Baker play to set a program record for a four-game Baker set with a 983 (245.75 per game average).

“We had zero momentum going into Baker play but after a short team meeting to resent our mental games, the guys really responded,” noted Shockey. “In the process of setting a new four-game Baker set program record, the team also shot the program’s first ever Baker 300 game.”

The previous high game for HU was 289 at the Buckeye Baker Classic back in 2019.

Next up for Shockey and crew is the fourth Crossroads League Tournament set for Saturday in Elkhart, Ind.