Coming up light

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Indians wanted to hear their names called for the top eight teams move on.

They came up just 13 pins short.

The Fort Recovery High School girls club bowling team knocked down 3,017 pins Saturday at the OHSAA Division II bowling tournament hosted by H.P. Lanes, but struggles in the second set of individual games and the second Baker game prevented the Indians from reaching bracket play.

“Obviously there is some disappointment,” Indians coach Alison Rosegrant said. “We were about 13 pins short, so very disappointed but not with the girls, just with the outcome.

“We struggled a little bit with those three Bakers, but overall, I’m proud of what they did and they should feel good about today. It just hurts a little.”

At state, teams had five bowlers roll three individual games, before combining for three games of Baker. From there, the eight teams with the largest pinfall of the field of 16 advanced to bracket play that featured best-of-five Baker games to work toward the state title.

The Indians, in their first appearance at the state finals, finished in ninth at the break, ending their day prematurely. Rootstown claimed the final spot with 3,030 pins, while the next closest team, Harding, ended 130 pins back of eighth.

“Just two spares off,” senior Brooklyn Wyerick said. “If we would have had just two more spares we could have made it, but you can’t win them all.”

Rootstown upset No. 1 seed and Northwest District champion Napoleon — the Indians were second in the district tournament — 166-139, 173-167, 159-125 before falling to fourth-seeded Mechanicsburg. St. Mary’s Memorial, which finished third in the Northwest district, lost to eventual state champion Kenton Ridge in the semifinal.

Fort Recovery got off to a hot start as Deanna Brown, Kayla Heitkamp, Emily Lauber, Ella Schoen and Brooklyn Wyerick combined for 920 pins in the first individual game to lead all teams.

Lauber was particularly strong early, throwing a hambone (four consecutive strikes to start a game) to open up the game. Her streak ended in the fifth frame with a 1-2-4-10 washout, which she failed to close by leaving the 10 pin. The FRHS junior, who was throwing her Roto Grip Hyped, didn’t leave another frame open as she shot the highest score of the day with her 213.

Heitkamp, using her Storm Phase 2, stayed clean with three strikes to total 198 pins in the opening game.

Things took a turn for the worse in the second game, as all five starters threw their lowest totals of the day.

“We weren’t following through on our shot,” Rosegrant said. “We were coming out on top of the ball and weren’t pushing it all the way through (causing shots to come up light).”

Rosegrant called the girls together with assistant coach Nate Bonifas to talk about the struggles and remind her team that they were still alive. Coming out of the meeting, the Indians filled seven of the final 10 frames to tally 763 pins and keep a grip on seventh place.

Rosegrant shook some things up in the third game, entering Jordyn Aisenbrey for Schoen. Aisenbrey had not bowled in the individual portion of the sectional or district tournaments, but Rosegrant said she liked what she saw out of the junior during the warmup.

“I was impressed that she was able to stay calm, especially for this being her first real varsity performance,” Rosegrant said.

Again, Heitkamp and Wyerick rolled the best games with a 192 and 191, respectively, and filling all but one frame each.

Wyerick started with a ball that she pulled too far left, leaving the 1, 2 and 9 pins. The spare attempt left the nine before she stayed clean the rest of the game.

“I just told myself, ‘It was one frame of 10, so I have nine more frames to do better,’” Wyerick said. “Staying outside the eighth board and playing straighter to get it to the pocket rather than working with a curve really helped.”

The team netted 862 pins in the third game to total 2,545, which was good for sixth place headed into the Baker games.

Things started to fall apart in the three baker games. The Indians only filled 19 of the 30 frames (63.3%) while shooting 150, 144 and 178 respectively. The struggles allowed for Mechanicsburg, Wooster and Rootstown to overtake the Indians.

Wyerick had the strongest baker performance, filling all six frames from the anchor position, including four strikes, three of which came in the tenth frame of the sixth game.

Heitkamp finished the day as the Indians’ top bowler, with 545 pins and a fill percentage of 83.3%, while striking 27.85% of the time. The FRHS junior finished tied for 21st with New Bremen’s Marina Nelson, falling six spots short of a medal. (The top five bowlers make first team All-Ohio, sixth through 10th are second team and 11th through 15th medal as honorable mentions.)

“Kayla has always been kind of a sleeper and our secret weapon,” Rosegrant said. “She flies under the radar but is always bowling consistently. … She doesn’t get all the attention with her scores as the other girls do, but I can always count on her to be consistent and that’s what she did today.” 

Wyerick followed Heitkamp with 524 pins for 35th in the state. She closed 77.8% of all frames, while striking a team-high 33.3% of the time.

Brown, Lauber, Schoen and Aisenbrey followed with 480, 368, 307 and 158 total pinfalls, respectively.

Wyerick, along with alternate Tiffany Taft, will graduate from FRHS this year, while the rest of the team are set to return for next season.

“Brooklyn is our anchor in more ways than one,” Rosegrant said. “The biggest thing we are going to miss when she leaves is having that consistent ‘go to’ that I can rely on. I know if it’s the tenth frame and we need three strikes, I know Brooklyn will give me three strikes.”

While Fort Recovery didn’t get the result it wanted, Rosegrant is excited what the future holds as it returns four of its five starters and two alternates from the state team.

“I am very proud of how we did at our first state appearance as a team,” she said. “This is obviously a lot of stress on the girls.

“I know when we come back next year, a majority of the girls are already going to have this experience under their belt and those first-time jitters out of the way. I told the girls, ‘Other than Tiffany and Brooklyn, this group's coming back next year. And I think we can come back even stronger because we've already been here and we know we can do it.”