Yukoner places in top 10 at national bowling championships

They may have missed out on winning medals, but the four Yukoners who attended the 2008 Youth Bowling Canada National Five Pin Championships still managed to turn more than a few heads over the course of the three-day event.

They may have missed out on winning medals, but the four Yukoners who attended the 2008 Youth Bowling Canada National Five Pin Championships still managed to turn more than a few heads over the course of the three-day event.

Among the highlights at this year’s competition, held in Edmonton, player Olivia Smith, 10, managed to achieve a personal best by finishing tied for eighth place with an impressive 10 wins. 

“I certainly think Olivia’s finish was the highlight in that regard,” said the team’s co-coach Wayne Beauchemin.

“Ten points I think is a great score for her. Top 10 for that kind of finish is fantastic. That’s her third year in the bantam division, so it’s a great result for her.”

The other coach on the team is Kevin Murphy.

The nationals featured both a singles and team event. Bowling teams at this competition are made up of five players in total.

Due to lack of numbers in the program, the Yukon has never competed in the team event at the nationals.

The different age categories are bantam, junior and senior. Bantams are players as old as 10 years; while juniors are bowlers who are 11 to 13 years old. Competitors in the seniors’ category can be between the ages of 14 to 18 years old.

In 2007, the Yukon was able to send a full roster in the boys’ and girls’ singles event, but this year the team was missing one bantam boy and one junior girl.

Besides Smith, the 2008 Yukon group was comprised of junior Matthew Mendham-Rudniski, 13, and seniors Nicole Thompson, 16, and Craig Beauchemin, who is also 16 years old.

All of the competitors with the exception of Mendham-Rudniski have prior experience competing at the youth nationals.

Qualifications for Team Yukon were held back in January and consisted of a nine game point total.

Bowlers had five weeks to complete the nine game qualification requirements and only one male and female player for each age category could be selected to attend the nationals.

Each game was played in league competition at Mad Trapper Bowling Lanes, located at 95 Lewes Boulevard. 

League play at Mad Trapper Bowling Lanes includes youth, adult and senior competition.

The championships didn’t include a playoff round; instead each participant competed in a double round robin format and played each province and territory twice.

A total of 24 games were played over the three days of competition, including five games on Saturday, 12 on Sunday and seven on Monday.

Bowlers were given one point for each victory and half a point was awarded for a tie.

At the end of the 24-game competition, the top three point totals, for both male and female in each age division, were given a medal.

All gold medal winners at the event also received a banner, commemorating the championship victory, to be displayed in their hometown bowling alley as well as a mini banner that they got to keep for themselves.

The Yukon has been attending this competition since 2001. The best performance from the territory came in 2002 when Harrison Kwok won a silver medal competing in the senior boys’ category. Kwok finished with an incredible 14.5 points, which was only .5 off from tying the gold medalist, who was from the Northwest Territories.

Heading into Monday, Smith was tied for fifth place with eight points. She managed to win two more games on the final day to finish in a tie for the eighth position.

Smith’s highlights at the 2008 championships included beating Nova Scotia twice and winning one of her two games against all three medalists in the bantam girls’ category.

In one of her games against gold medalist Manitoba, she won by a score of 153-149, while in her sole win against Alberta, who finished second, she scored her highest point total, which was 224.

Smith recorded a four bagger in the game against Alberta, which is when a bowler hits four strikes in a row.

In Smith’s second game against third place Quebec, she won 158-142.

Mendham-Rudniski also performed very well at his first national bowling competition, winning three matches in total. His highest point total came in against New Brunswick when he scored 226.

Thompson also finished with three points.

Thompson’s wins included an opening tournament upset over last year’s gold medalist in the senior girls’ category, who was from southern Ontario.

She won the game by a staggering score of 287-208, which was her highest point total in a single game at the championships.

Craig, who competed in a very tough senior boys’ category, managed to win five games in total.

Craig’s highest point total came in a victory over New Brunswick when he scored 244 points. No Yukon bowlers tied at this year’s competition.

All of the Yukon bowlers, who competed in the 2008 nationals, are eligible to return for next year’s competition, with Smith moving up to compete in the junior category.

Beauchemin attributed Smith’s great performance to how focussed she was throughout the competition.

“It ends up in a lot of cases just being focus,” he said.

“With all of the excitement, all of the noise, all the cheering and all that stuff going on, it’s still a matter of getting up there and remembering what you have to do to be successful. In a couple a cases it was a matter of the last two frames, she had to make sure she got a strike and a good count in the last frame to get the extra points.”

He said he was happy with the results this year.

“Certainly Olivia’s average was above what she bowled normally,” Beauchemin said.

“Everybody had some really good games and especially the second day where you have 12 games to bowl, there are those stretches where you just, kind of, don’t have it and there is a bit of a lapse. There’s a bit of a mental fallout type of thing were you just don’t have it for those couple of games and then you bounce back and get back into it. You have to be consistent and you have to maintain that focus right through the 24 games.”

Beauchemin said he was proud of all of the Yukon bowlers who competed this year.

“As much as they are disappointed that in some games they just didn’t bowl very well and in some cases got beat badly or whatever, they still maintained their sportsmanship and good humour in some cases,” he said.

“They just kind of laughed some of them off just because you can’t get upset if you are being beat that badly because somebody is throwing strike after strike after strike. So they kept a sense of humour about it they, kept a good sportsmanship, they enjoyed themselves and certainly (we are) more than happy with the way they did.”

The 2009 bowling nationals will mark the 100th year anniversary of five pin bowling in Canada and will be held in Toronto.