A Strike! — Ten Newtown Bowlers Excel

Newtown was represented by 10 bowlers in the United States Bowling Congress-sponsored Brookfield Juniors League this past season. The league featured 100 student-athlete youth bowlers who competed every Saturday morning for 30 weeks throughout the fall, winter and into the spring.

The league is co-ed and for bowlers ranging in age from four to 21. It includes teams from two states and 12 different towns in Connecticut.

There are a dozen certified coaches who are assigned two pairs of lanes each, so it is highly instructional. These coaches also give the children the opportunity to arrive 30 minutes early for free one on one practice sessions

There are no referees in bowling, so the participants police themselves, and at the end of the three matches the team captains sign each others score sheets.

Participants from Newtown are: Eight-year-old David Jensen. Middle Gate Elementary School’s lone representative competed in the Bantam Division, where he averaged 44 on the season. His high game was a 91, and his high three-game series was a 178.

Nine-year-old John Bienkowski proudly represented the Sandy Hook Elementary School in the Preps Division, where he bowled well enough to crack the Top Ten List for his age group on the strength of his 100 average. His high game this season was a 141, and his high series was a 372.

Tyler Sherwood, 13, also was a member of the Preps Division. The Reed Intermediate School student averaged a 47, had a high game of 107, and a high series of 229.

There are two 13-year-olds from the Middle School and Adam Hedrick and Jason Sherwood both participated in the Junior Division where they averaged 99 and 95 respectively. Henrick’s high game was a 130 and his best series was a 329. Sherwood rolled a 152 on his best day, and had a personal best series of 365.

The other five members of the Newtown Junior Bowlers all attend Newtown High. Jake Eventoff, 14, had the fifth highest average in his division with a 154, and Sandy Hook’s Josh Volpe had the second highest score, 168, only seven pins off the high mark. Eventoff bowled six 200 games, and a milestone high series of 607, which featured his 256 game. Volpe put ten 200 games on the board this year and fired two 600 series. He also bowled a 256, and his best series was a 606. Volpe was also a member of his division’s travel team. No other area town featured two bowlers in the Top 5 in this division.

The three sophomores in town were Vince La Francesca, 16, and Barry Smith and Tyler Grant, both 15. Smith had a 150 average, with a high game of 192, and a series of 523. La Francesca and Grant bowled averages which were good enough to place both of these student athletes in the Top Ten of the Senior Division.

La Francesca finished in eighth place with a 170 average, and posted seven scores above 200, with a 222 for his high game. He had the third-highest total pin-fall in the division, with 14,812 pins toppled this year. He bowled a 202 for high-game honors. La Francesca averaged 173 as a member of the Senior Travel Team.

Grant averaged a 190 and bowled 29 200 games this year. His best game was a 246. He also broke the 600 series mark six times, and almost reached the magical 700 mark with his 682.