Struggles with spares

CELINA, Ohio — The Indians are coming off the best season in program history but have some question marks after graduating three starters.

A strong pack of Cougars showed them that they will have some work to do to remain competitive.

Fort Recovery High School’s girls bowling team fell to the Van Wert Cougars 2,284-2,093 on Saturday at Plaza.

“We have work to do,” said FRHS coach Doug Stone. “I mean, we stayed up with them. … We were throwing the ball well, but we’ve got to just keep picking up our spares. Those are big.”

The Tribe (1-1) didn’t do the best at keeping frames clean as the team only had a combined fill percentage of 54.7% (82-for-150), while Van Wert sat at 61.3% (92-for-150).

Fort Recovery’s top three bowlers all filled over 60% of their frames, including Lilah Thien, who had a match-high 83.3%.

Thien, Deanna Brown and Jadyn Wyerick, the three returners from last year’s team that competed at state, all finished in the top four from the individual games. Brown had the best series of 351 pins, beating out Van Wert’s Reagan Horine – she competed at state in Division I as an individual – who shot a 348. A match-high 211 pins in her first game gave Wyerick the third best series at 346, while Thien had a 329. (Van Wert’s Aydreigh Hanicq was the only other bowler to break the 300 mark with a 324 series, and Horine followed Wyerick’s game high with a 210.)

Despite the top three Indians being in the top four bowlers from the individual games, FRHS entered the baker games trailing Van Wert (1-0) by 72 pins.

“I want to give all the girls an opportunity,” Stone said. “That’s hard to do because I’ve got four new bowlers, so we just have to work together as a team to be more consistent.”

The top score from the first-year bowlers came from Liliana Williams as she rolled a 135. The lone freshman on the Tribe didn’t have the best start in her individual game as she left the first two frames open by coming up light on the 1 and 2 pins and then chopped the one on a 1-2-7 leave.

Williams recovered with back-to-back strikes. She mentally redeemed herself in the fifth frame by picking up the 1-2-7 that she chopped in the second.

The success during the individual game also earned her a spot in the lineup for four out of the five baker games.

“I kind of just told myself I can do it and get those strikes,” Williams said. “It makes me feel pretty good to know that I’m able to bowl more than one baker game, because usually I only bowl one or two and today I got four.”

Outside of Williams, Claire Gaerke shot a 126 in her individual game. She also had the best fill percentage of the new Indians at 44.4% (8-for-18).

Elizabeth Kahlig and Malia Grisez both struggled in the individual games with scores of 78 and 58 pins.

Fort Recovery failed to make up any ground in the baker games. The Cougars shot better in four games and both teams knocked over 145 pins in the second. The Tribe shot scores of 126, 145, 125, 155 and 119, respectively.

Picking up spares continued to be a problem for the Indians as they only filled 18-of-41 spare attempts (43.9%) resulting in 23 open frames (54% fill percentage).

“It’s just pin count,” Stone said of what the team needs to work on. “Instead of throwing two or three gutters in a row, we need to just get some pins. … We’ve got some practices coming up then Thanksgiving so they’ll get a break. But other than that, I think we’re doing fine.”