BOWLING

The Foresters bowling teams concluded their regular season with the Hoosier Classic over the weekend. The tourney is the largest competition of the year with 78 men’s and 64 women’s teams participating. The tournament format consists of five team games on Saturday on one oil pattern and 15 Baker games on Sunday with a different oil pattern.

This year marked the 56th year of the Hoosier Classic making it not only the largest tournament, but one of the sport’s oldest tournaments as well.  The Hoosier Classic partnered with the Make-a-Wish Foundation to help with the fundraising efforts to grant wishes for two kids.

The Huntington men finished the weekend in 38th place out of 78 teams with a total score of 7,599. Leland Jones led the way with his 42nd place finish out of 530 bowlers by scoring 1,055 pins through five games (211 per game average).

On his team’s performance, Coach Mike Shockey had this to say, “We bowled okay on Saturday and felt like we were in a decent position to move up in the standings on Sunday. Typically, we are a very good Baker game team but struggled with the pattern Sunday and could not find a consistent scoring line lane to lane.”

The Forester women’s program had a solid outing to finish 28th out of 64 teams by knocking down 7,364 pins on the weekend.  Amanda Turner paced HU with a 19th place finish out of 409 bowlers by racking up a score of 1,051 through five games for an average of 210.2 per game.

“The ladies’ play felt like a roller coaster ride this weekend,” noted Shockey. “We would have a great game followed by a not-so-great game. We did manage to get as high as fourth place early in the tournament, but the lack of consistency kept us from maintaining that position.”

The Hoosier Classic started working with Make-a-Wish several years ago and has bolstered fundraising efforts in order to grant two wishes. HU was again asked to help with the celebration for the Make-A-Wish kids as the only school that sponsored both kids during the presentation.

“The team loves being a part of this celebration and with the team’s hard work, we were able to present each kid with six baskets full of presents and goodies to make their trip to Disney unforgettable,” stated Shockey.

The Foresters will wind down their season with USBC Sectionals slated for March 7-9.