Tribe forced to share with Tigers

MINSTER, Ohio — The Indians found themselves in the same spot for the second year in a row.

They won all six Midwest Athletic Conference matches during the regular season.

After a bye and cruising through the host Wildcats, all that stood between the Tribe and an outright title was the Tigers.

And for a second straight year, the Indians came up just short and will share the conference title.

The Fort Recovery High School girls bowling team finished second at the MAC tournament falling to the Versailles Tigers 161-142, 148-183, 169-166, 190-180 at Community Lanes on Tuesday.

The Indians (9-2, 6-0 MAC) went undefeated in conference matches during the regular season, while Versailles (11-4, 5-1 MAC) only lost to FRHS to finish one point behind in the standings. The loss in the tournament championship gave Fort Recovery five MAC points, while the Tigers got six, so both teams tied at 11 on the year.

“Definitely frustrating to split it with Versailles again, but I’m proud of how the girls bowled,” said FRHS coach Alison Rosegrant. “We looked great in all the bakers leading up to Versailles. It was a close match, everything within a few pins. One ball could have made a difference.

“So, I’m super proud of the season we’ve had, I’m proud of how we performed tonight and I’m excited for the postseason.”

The Indians are now tied with Coldwater with two MAC girls bowling titles, while VHS leads all schools with four. (New Bremen, Minster, Parkway and Marion Local have not claimed a title in five seasons.)

The Indians opened the best-of-five Baker set with Versailles with their weakest game of the day, as five open frames kept them under 150 pins. Freshman Lilah Thien and sophomore Deanna Brown closed all four of their frames. Both put up a pair of strikes, while Brown — who was the anchor — had her first extra ball of the 10th frame bounce off the pocket to leave the No. 5 pin. The Tigers overcame a slow start with two opens in the first three frames for the 161-142 win.

FRHS bounced back with its best game of the day thanks to six strikes.

Ella Schoen started with a Brooklyn strike (when the ball crosses to the non-dominant hand side) before Thien followed it up with a flush shot. After a pair of opens, Brown, Schoen, Thien and Kayla Heitkamp strung together strikes for a hambone (four straight strikes). While the Indians finished the game with two more opens, the run was good enough for a 35-pin victory that tied the match up.

The Tribe marked all but two frames, but a late turkey put the Tigers ahead in the third game. But Versailles left the 10th frame open to give FRHS a chance.

A strike from Schoen in the ninth set up Brown, but the lefty needed at least two strikes of her own to give her team a 2-1 lead. Her first shot came up just light, leaving the 10 pin. (She closed the frame and left the No. 4 pin on the extra ball for a 169-166 loss.)

The Indians again only had two opens in the fourth game, but couldn’t pull even.

After nine frames, Fort Recovery led 171-160. Schoen’s first shot in the 10th frame hit the pocket flush, but left a ringing 10 after hitting the pocket too hard. Her attempt at converting the spare ended with her ball falling into the right gutter for the final of 180.

On the other lane, Versailles’ Danielle Francis punched out the 10th for the victory.

Brown had the strongest day for the Indians, closing 24 of 28 potential frames (85.7%) and rolling strikes on 43.2% (16-of-37) of the full racks she shot at. While she felt good about her team’s performance, she was left wondering about what could have been if they caught a few more breaks.

“It feels good to be striking and be one of those people helping the team,” Brown said. “All we were away was three pins in one game and then we could have won that last one by just a spare and a strike.”

The Tribe also got a strong performance from its freshman in the final match. Thien closed seven of her eight frames against the Tigers while throwing six strikes. She also finished with the team’s second-best fill and strike percentages at 78.8% (26-of-33) and 39.4% (13-of-33). Jayden Wyerick got entered into the lineup for the third and fourth Baker games filling all four of her frames.

“They actually came and followed us in the postseason last year,” Rosegrant said while also noting that experience with the youth league prepared the freshmen for postseason play. “So they’ve got this experience from the audience and now they’re ready to bowl on the big stage.”

To get to the championship match, Fort Recovery had to go through the Minster Wildcats in the semifinal. It was never at risk of dropping a game, cruising to a 175-119, 170-136, 167-114 victory.

Emily Lauber finished as the top performer from the round, filling all six of her frames, while striking three times.

The top-seeded Indians got a bye in the first round. (The first round consisted of two individual games and two Baker games and the team with the most total pins moved on to the semifinal round. FRHS finished with 1,889 in the opening round.)

The Indians will now turn their sights to the sectional meet 9 a.m. Tuesday at Rollhouse Dayton. To capture a sectional championship, they will need to go through Versailles again.

“We’re definitely going to use this as our driving force,” Rosegrant said. “We’re going to come back with a vengeance. We want to take sectional and be first, we want to take district and be first. We’re going to take this opportunity to learn where we had a few open frames, we just can’t have those next time.”