Milford’s Josh Brooksbank was one of five Eagles to qualify for the district tournament.

Milford’s Josh Brooksbank was one of five Eagles to qualify for the district tournament.
By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

The area bowling season came to a disappointing end at Beaver-Vu Lanes outside of Dayton for three Division I schools last week as no individuals from Amelia, Milford or Glen Este were able to advance out of the district tournament up to state.

All three schools had representatives take part in the boys and the girls tournament with the Lady Trojans leading the way in representatives as the team advanced out of the Crossgate Lanes sectional.

Facing a difficult oil pattern at districts, the local bowlers took a game or so to get comfortable to how the ball was reacting to the shot, eventually putting up some solid games, but not doing enough to take the next step.

“A couple of the girls started off struggling a little bit — the balls were just not reacting the way we needed them to do — so we made some adjustments,” Glen Este head coach Kevin Briggs said of his girls team.

The coach decided given the difficulty of the shot and the necessity to give his team the best opportunity to advance that he would try to see who could handle the shot and the pressure the best.

As a result, only Danielle Cooper and Courtney Chaffin recorded three scores, making them the only eligible bowlers from the Lady Trojans to advance to state.

Unfortunately, Cooper finished the day in 32nd place overall rolling games of 138, 238 and 166 (542). Chaffin was right behind her in 35th with a 533. They would have needed series of 593 to qualify.

Milford’s Alyna Hook finished in 52nd place with games of 166, 188 and 149 to roll a 503 series. Her teammate, Sarah Schmitgesling rolled games of 171, 147 and 150 to post a 468 series, good enough for 74th.

Amelia’s Kristina Hodges couldn’t get anything going, bowling games of 145, 142 and 142 (429) to finish in 100th.

Similar to their counterparts, Glen Este’s pair of boys, Brady Dunigan and Tanner Davis, had difficulty with the shot.

“It was definitely a tougher shot than they had bowled on all year and it made for a couple of bad breaks in the first couple of games,” Briggs said. “We made some adjustments and both got better. They saw and read the lane a little better. The day got much better as it went on, they just needed to get used to how the lane was adjusting.”

Dunigan put together the best three-game series of any local bowler at the district, a 561. His series was 64 pins shy of the final state-qualifying slot.

Davis rolled games of 171, 171 and 194 to post a 536 series, which put him in 65th place.

Amelia’s Nic Huber split the two Glen Este teammates, rolling games of 165, 205 and 181 to finish with 551 and 56th overall.

Milford’s trio of Nathan McGeorge, Josh Brooksbank and Josh Cooper finished in 69th, 72nd and 97th, respectively. McGeorge bowled a series of 529, Brooksbank was right behind him with a 524 and Cooper rolled a 478.

Despite the bitter end of the season, area bowling fans can take solace in knowing that all six district qualifying boys and four individual girls are eligible to return to the lanes for their respective schools next season.

Complete results from the Beaver-Vu district tournament are available on swdab.org.