Surrounded by the best of the best at Columbus Palace Lanes. The Hillsboro Lady Indians make their presence known for their first real test of the season.
The kick off tournament is the largest tournament of the year. You have to be a district qualifier or have won your conference to get an invite to this event. 32 Ladies teams attended along with 30 boys teams from all over the state. It is said to be the largest tournament of its kind in the entire country.
The format for the tournament was three individual games followed by two baker team games. then they cut to the top 16 teams to go head to head in bracket play baker style. The tournament directors always apply a professional oil pattern to the lanes making the lanes difficult to bowl. They keep this pattern a secret so no team has and advantage over another. The coaches do not get to see the oil pattern information until check-in the day of the event.
Through qualifying the Lady Indians first game started out what they thought was a bit rough, scoring a 799 for 5 bowlers. To their surprise scores were low for just about everyone that was good enough for 12th spot. Looking to rally the team Senior Maddy Miller scored a 210 first game witch was 6th highest in the tournament for game 1. Second game the Indians buckled down and made a statement scoring a 928 for game two. Skyrocketing the Tribe from 12th to 4th place.
Leading the Indian charge was Freshman Selena Mingua scoring a 201 followed by Senior Aleigha Tarbutton with a 200 and Senior Mary Herman with a 194. For the third game the lanes took a turn for the worse on the ladies with the pattern breaking down and Hillsboro scored a 779. The two baker games went fast as the Indians Scored 147 and a 178, Giving a total for qualifying 2831. That was good for 6th seed after qualifying. 26 pins over last years division 2 champions Coldwater high school. Maddy Miller Was the highest scoring Indian with a 562 series.
Durring the championship rounds Hillsboro faced Fairport Harding High School the 11th seed. Hillsboro came out hot beating Fairport the first two baker games. Fairport had to rally and when the next three. Hillsboro fought hard but lost by one pin and was eliminated by Fairport in game 4 187 to 186.
Coaches Cathy Rhoads and Jeff Miller recap on the tournament. ” We couldn’t be more proud of the girls performance today. They fought hard and days like today tend to be a grind. We leave early in the morning and spend all day for these big tournaments and given the field of play we were up against we did very well. We have known for a long time that we have one of the best teams in the state. Today every other school in both divisions know it now too. There are a lot of teams out there that don’t want to be paired up against Hillsboro now. That what we were after to make a statement and we believe we did that today.”
Next up for Hillsboro High School Bowling is a home match for the F.A.C. league at Highland lanes vs. Chillicothe High School on Dec 7th at 4:30 pm.
Jeff Miller the head coach of the HHS varsity bowling team provided this story.
