Comet girls place 3rd at State Bowling Team Tournament

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

WATERLOO — Baker Rotation bowling tournaments can convert the coolest of high rollers … you know? ringers who can start a game with seven strikes in a row but remain as stoic as Bill Belichick while walking back on the approach … into ravenous lunatics for the sake of the collective whole.

So it definitely sounded like teen spirit during Wednesday Class 1A Boys and Girls State Bowling Team Tournament, Wednesday afternoon and evening at Cadillac Xtreme Bowling Center.

Some of the biggest eruptions came when a team strung seven or more strikes in a row.

And though the Charles City girls team didn’t quite line up the X’s like … say … Shenandoah’s boys, who combined forces for a near-perfect 299 during the pre-bracket round of 15 games, the Comets made themselves heard in the same vehemence whenever they picked up spares — especially those pesky corner-pin spares.

And at one point, the Comets were the only team heard in the entire house as most other teams (boys and girls) had finished their 15-game rounds and were waiting for the championship and consolation brackets to be announced — in part, the reason the Comets were lagging behind was because they often needed to throw two balls to clear the 10 pins from the rack.

And they had reason to raise the roof.

Going into the final five pre-bracket games, the Comets were 22 pins behind Vinton-Shellsburg for the fourth seed in the subsequent four-team championship bracket. That gap increased to 60 when the Vikings rolled a 202 in the 11th game to the Comets’ 164.

But the Comets didn’t panic and, while “ceremoniously” picking up their spares with some strikes sprinkled in, finished the round with 184, 202 and 192 in the last three games as the Vikings struggled down the stretch, enabling Charles City to make the championship bracket cut by 54 pins.

“All day long we worked hard and bowled great,” Comet girls head coach Casey Brandau said of her team after it attained another trophy for Charles City High School to put on display by sweeping Independence in the best-of-five-games third-place match.

Charles City’s interchangeable state lineup of seniors Isabel Crawford, Payton Hadley and Darian Hesse; junior Kayla Streich; sophomore Kinleigh Bahe; and freshman Alexis Putney actually came much closer to winning a state championship than the Kansas City Chiefs did to winning the latest Super Bowl.

In the championship semifinals against eventual champion Camanche, the Comets jumped ahead in the first game while taking advantage of several early open frames by The Storm, who later were able to combine efforts for a four-bagger (four strikes in row) to win the first game 215-202.

Camanche won the second game (221-177), but the Comets avoided the sweep by winning the third game (189-157) and were in contention to even the series in the fourth game, but another string of strikes by The Storm and a few unconverted splits by the Comets enabled the former team to advance (207-173).

Camanche later defeated Louisa-Muscatine 3 games to 1 in the championship match.

Charles City finished the season with Baker games of 174, 180 and 218 while the Mustangs countered with 137, 172 and 133.

In the consolation bracket, Vinton-Shellsburg defeated Clarinda 3 game to 1 and the fifth-place match; and Maquoketa swept St. Albert in the seventh-place match.

“We stayed positive, we made our spares and we were great teammates cheering each other on and lending support when needed,” said Brandau, who was also impressed with the way her team maintained a 182 average — higher than the Comets’ season Baker Rotation average — while bowling a grand total of 22 games during a course of more than five-and-a-half hours.

The Comet boys team, which qualified for state after overcoming a 210-pin deficit to seize the lone berth from Denver at last week’s state-qualifier, found itself in a similar situation being 218 pins shy of Camanche, which was holding the fourth spot going into the final five pre-bracket games.

But holding the seventh spot, the Comets needed not to just catch and pass one team, but three including Maquoketa and Durant.

Charles City’s interchangeable squad of senior Zach Putney; juniors Bryce Elsbury, Sullivan Gerleman and Jayden Lopez; sophomores Joey Robel and Noah White; and freshman Cooper Holm, made up some ground with a 227 13th game, but couldn’t move from the seven spot.

Eventually, the Comets swept St. Albert 203-176, 223-215, 223-190 in the seventh-place match.

Vinton-Shellsburg defeated Camanche 3 games to 1 in the championship match.

Shenandoah, which secured the No. 1 seed in the championship bracket after setting a 15-game pre-bracket state record in all classes with a total pinfall of 3,403 (227 average), defeated Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn 3 games to 1 in the third-place match.

Durant defeated Maquoketa 3 games to 2 in the fifth-place match.