The Alley Cats need to get the ball rolling again. Leading up to the weekend, the Saint Ignatius bowling squad was feeling confident, but unfortunately standardized testing has struck again and took out a key player for the weekend’s match against Olmsted Falls.

What ended up being a fantastic game was lost by only a slim margin, with the Alley Cats trailing by around forty pins the whole match.

Everyone was on the top of their game, and the new additions to the team held their own, but what would normally win against most other teams was not enough to put the team over the top.

Team captain Anthony Doran ‘18 came out on top, bowling an impressive 695 series, with a high game of 255.

The next day, the Alley Cats were back in North Olmsted for the Eagle Challenge 2017, and headed into their second tournament of this year feeling confident despite their loss.

However, the Wildcats unfortunately did not pick up from Saturday. As written here last week, when bowling in tournaments, the oil pattern plays a large factor in a team’s success. If you are not cognizant of the proper adjustments that need to be made to your shot, you will not be able to handle the lane. For some of the team, that is just what happened.

Other keglers, namely Ryan Wallenhorst ‘21, threw great games. Wallenhorst threw an excellent series, coming out with a new personal high game of 214. But even with such an excellent series, the team could not put it all together, and ultimately ended up in 12th out of the 28 boys teams present that day.

It seems easy to consistently get strikes and spares when you’re shooting on a house shot, and that can lead you to feeling confident. However, when when you’re thrown onto a new pattern you’ve never shot on before, it can be hard to adjust, and ultimately that is what cost the Alley Cats in their second tournament.

Scores:

Saint Ignatius vs. Olmsted Falls

Andrew Fornadel: 158

Alex Gehrlein: 174, 180, 163

Dylan Huss: 168, 214, 170

Alex Madeja: 123

Anthony Doran: 227, 255, 213

Eagle Challenge 2017

Noah Virant: 160

Dylan Huss: 116, 180, 180

Alex Gehrlein: 132

Ryan Wallenhorst: 124, 164, 214

Vinny Doran: 128, 143, 187

Anthony Doran: 204, 203, 146