July 11, 2008

By: Mark Martin

USBC JUNIOR GOLD COMPETITION

Century Bowl in Waterford Township , Sunnybrook Lanes and Sterling Lanes in Sterling Heights hosted the preliminary qualifying earlier this week for the United States Bowling Congress Junior Gold competition.

Nearly 1,500 of the finest youth bowlers including some from Puerto Rico and Canada bowled 18 games of qualifying at the three centers under very demanding Sport lane conditions which tested the bowlers on Monday through Wednesday.

The top 105 boys and 57 girls returned to Sunnybrook Lanes on Thursday to bowl an additional 12 games to determine the top 16 in each division for the finals this morning at Sunnybrook Lanes.

The girls from Michigan who made the initial cut were Christine Bator of Warren, Sara Litteral of Clinton Township , Felicia Goll of St. Clair Shores and Addileen Pointer of Highland . Boys were Adam Jablonski of Sterling Heights, Scott Honeysett of Lansing, Brian McMahon of Saginaw, Jonathan Schiller of Milford, John Kaashoek of Jenison, Michael Jacobs of Canton, Abed Daher of Brownstown and Nicolas Sutherland of Grand Blanc.

In the match play finals each bowler will bowl 16 one-game matches against each of the other competitors in a round robin format accumulating pins from their score plus bonus pins for each match won. The final standings will be based on the highest number of pins accumulated.

During preliminary qualifying there were three perfect 300 games bowled. Completing the task were Adam Chase of Seaport, N.Y.; Liz Seibel of Hellerton , Penn. ; and Greg Geering of Phoenix .

The top four boys and top four girls will earn spots on Junior Team USA and represent the United States in international competition. Additionally two boys and two girls will be selected by the selection committee to join the team.

In addition to spots on the national team over $100,000 in scholarship dollars will be awarded.

The first squad of competition begins at 9 a.m. and the second squad at 2 p.m. at Sunnybrook Lanes.

There is no charge for watching the finest youth bowlers in the world compete on the highest stage.

------

HONOR SCORES

300 Games

Date, Name, Hometown, Center, League

800 Series

Date, Name (Score), Hometown, Center, League

Mark Martin writes a weekly bowling column for The Daily Oakland Press and is the association manager of the Metro Detroit USBC Association. He can be reached at (248) 443-2695, faxed at (248) 443-2690 or e-mailed at mark.martin@mdusbc.com.