The Berkshire Badgers’ bowling team’s season may be still be young but the goals are pretty clear. Berkshire received its first taste of action in the Chagrin Valley Conference as the boys defeated CVC foe Edgewood Warriors 2189-1986 but lost to the Lakeside Dragons 2321-1986 while the girls were defeated by the Warriors 1398-1387 and Lakeside 1409-1387 in a tri-match last Thursday at the Jefferson Lanes in Ashtabula.
“It was important for us,” boys’ Coach Kevin Johnson said. “We would have liked to beat them both, but it gauged where we would be this season standing-wise and competitive-wise. The boys just missed some crucial spares. We got too far behind in that second game because we had a bunch of spares missed.”
Senior Noah Valentino paced Berkshire by knocking down 407 pins, senior Mario Romagni scored a 348, senior Levi Rohl carded 313, senior Ryan Kessinger recorded a 295, and sophomore Ethan Miller rolled a 279.
In the match against Edgewood, Berkshire (1-2, 1-1) took an early lead after outscoring the Warriors 863-766 in the first game and continued to roll in the second, beating its CVC rivals by a 779-739 margin to take a 1642-1505 lead into the three-game Baker series, a format which requires each bowler to compete in two frames in each game before the cumulative scores are added together.
The Badgers maintained their lead, knocking down 547 pins over three Baker games compared to Edgewood scoring 411 to claim the victory. According to Johnson, as favorable as the scores were against Edgewood, his team missed several spare opportunities and those missed opportunities haunted them in the loss against Lakeside.
The Dragons had a pair of bowlers who each scored over 400 across the first two games, pacing them to a 1048-864 lead. After being outscored in the second game by a 790-779 margin, Berkshire trimmed the deficit by outperforming its CVC foe in the Baker game series by winning that battle 547-483.
According to the four-year coach, winning the Baker series against both CVC foes demonstrated the experience of the Badgers’ squad.
“We had a good look at the lanes but they did not execute their spares,” said the four-year coach. “They executed pretty well but we were at too big of a deficit with some of those key spares that we missed. They bounced back in the Bakers and gave us a chance, but we just fell a little short.”
With Miller being the only newcomer to the starting line-up this season, Johnson said that the boys are setting higher expectations for themselves, including Valentino, who hopes to break the school record for the highest scoring average in a game.
Valentino’s season is off to a good start, bowling over 200 in each of the two games on Thursday.
“He is kind of the rock of the team,” Johnson said. “If we need a big shot, we want him up there to do it, he has come through quite a bit even last year and this year so far. In this match Noah came up huge and we needed a few shots to keep us in it and he delivered.”
The girls’ team was paced by junior Alie Ruchalski who knocked down 249 pins, senior Meagan Passow rolled a 244, junior Charlotte Connors scored a 222, freshman Melissa Karl bowled a 201, junior Samantha Snow recorded a 100 in game one and Miriam Masters subbed for Snow to score a 70 in the second game.
The Badger (0-3, 0-3) girls knocked down a total of 1086 pins in the first two games, which put them in first place with a 17-pin lead over Edgewood and a 56-pin lead against Lakeside.
Berkshire’s lead vanished in the Baker game series, as it knocked down only 301 pins, being outscored 379-301 by the Dragons and 329-301by the Warriors.
Ultimately, Edgewood eclipsed the Badgers by only 11 pins and Lakeside by a 22-pin margin.
Despite losing to both Edgewood and Lakeside, the Badger girls were competitive against two of their CVC rivals, a promising sign from a Badger girls’ squad that has only three bowlers with significant experience in Ruchalski, Passow and Connors with the rest being newcomers.
Following the Badger boys’ road dual match against Mayfield and the Berkshire girls hosting a tri-match against Rootstown and Warren Howland on Wednesday, the Berkshire bowling teams will return to action after the Thanksgiving holiday to take on Geauga County rival Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin at Rosewood Lanes in Oakwood on Dec. 2 at 4 p.m.
