Prep Bowling: Medal Up

The Harrisburg High School boys' bowling team took home first place in the Silver Division of the 16-team event at the Belleville East Invitational over the weekend, while the Bulldog girls grabbed a second place showing in the Gold Division.

The tournament was based on three games of qualifying in the morning that put teams into an 8-team bracket with gold being the top 8 and silver being the bottom eight, followed by a bracket style roll off to determine the winner in each bracket.

The Harrisburg girls qualified sixth in the morning and the boys were 10th. The girls beat Belleville West in match one and then topped Alton to advance to the championship match where they fell to Herrin 968-905 to place second.

The Bulldog boys rolled right through three opponents in their division, beating Centralia, Waterloo Gibault and Trenton Wesclin to win that division. The boys bowled over 950 each of the three games to easily come out on top.

Individually, Elizabeth Davis was high for the whole tournament with a 1320 for the six games and Claire McDermott placed second at 1280, each receiving medals for their showing.

On Friday, both the boys and girls' bowling teams won comfortably over Massac County with the boys taking the match 2605-2323 and the girls' winning 2884-2152.

Bulldog freshman Sebastian Barton led the guys with a 592, followed by Breden Mitchell at 535. Isaac Crank had a nice 506 series in the junior varsity match.

On the girls' side, Davis bowled a blistering 703 series and was supported nicely by McDermott's 628 and Keely Reed had her best of the season, bowling a 548.

"Friday evening both girls and boys teams played well," Harrisburg head coach Doug Cottom said. "Sebastian continues to improve each time out and Charles Welge is coming on nicely for the guys. Our top two girls, Claire and Elizabeth lead us each outing and if we get support from the others the girls will be fine."

Last Wednesday, the Harrisburg girls squeaked out a 2408-2389 win over Carbondale, while the boys fell 2724-2455.

Davis led the girls with a 599, followed by Bailey Cain at 562. Mitchell was tops for the boys at 605.

Harrisburg has three home matches this week with Carterville, Eldorado and Johnston City starting Tuesday and will then be at the Herrin Invitational on Saturday.