Steven Wright -March 1, 2024
BEAVERCREEK — Both of the Beavercreek bowling teams have successfully qualified for the OHSAA Division I state bowling championships.
District tournaments were held at Beaver-Vu Lanes on Thursday and Friday. Both the boys and girls squads advanced by finishing in the final qualifying position in their competitions.
The girls side on Thursday got itself into the top-3 after the individual games, but a few strong starts to the six Baker games by other teams moved the Lady Beaver down into sixth and one spot out of qualification. Beavercreek maintained its average and was able to surpass its 44 pin deficit to Northmont to get into the fifth and final spot to make state.
Madison Baker had a 586 three-game total to lead the girls side and finish in 15th in the overall standings. Ericka Reeve got 22nd and Lizzie Braunstein was 27th.
The boys team on Friday found itself with a large early deficit to make up. After the first set of the three individual games, Beavercreek, which are the defending state champions, was in 17th place of the 24 teams participating and 122 pins behind fifth. The Beavers only made up 30 pins over the next two sets of games but through attrition moved up to sixth in the standings.
Beavercreek got into fourth place midway through the Baker portion of the tournament but fell behind by 66 pins heading into the final game. Bowling a 247, the Beavers had the highest score of any team in the final game to regain its position to secure advancement.
Grayson Arnold got seventh place in the individual standings with a 684 series.
The state bowling tournaments are being held at HP Lanes in Columbus. The boys competition will be on Friday, March 8, and the girls compete on Saturday, March 9. Both begin at 10:45 a.m., with the championship portion estimated to start around 3:30 p.m.
Tickets are available to be purchased online from the OHSAA at www.ohsaa.org/tickets and may be purchased anytime before the tournament begins.
Contact Steven Wright at 937-502-4498 and follow on X (formerly Twitter) @Steven_Wright_.