BOWLING

The Forester bowling teams wrapped up the semester at the Motiv Warhawk Open where the men had a great weekend by finishing second out of 32 teams while the women placed 10th out of 23 teams. The tournament format was six traditional team games on Saturday and 16 Baker games on Sunday with the eight schools moving on to best of three match play.

The HU men had an impressive outing by totaling 8,861 pins to head into match play as the second seed. The first round saw them match up against powerhouse and host school Wisconsin-Whitewater. After dropping game one, Huntington came back to win the second forcing a deciding game three where the Warhawks found something on the lanes and shot a huge 265 game to move on to the semifinals.

For the second straight week, sophomore Derek Leyba led the team with another All-Tournament Team designation by finishing fourth. He turned in a pin total of 1,220 for six games for a 203.3 average.

“We’re extremely proud of the men this weekend,” said Coach Mike Shockey. “We saw good things coming especially after their performance last weekend. The guys have shown a great work ethic the last few weeks and to see them get rewarded is very satisfying.

“We bowled very well against the scoring pace of the field, but there were still issues with some consistency and spare shooting that needs cleaned up. The men are constantly setting a standard of expectation and then doing the work needed to raise the standard again.”

The Forester women posted a total of 7,955 for the weekend and unfortunately did not make match play. Kayli Iorio led the women with a 10th place finish with her score of 1,111 for six games (185.17/game average).

“The women were as high as fifth place starting the day Sunday but could not mount any sort of momentum to keep up with the top teams in the field,” noted Shockey. “The shot was really difficult this weekend which is normally a great thing for the men and women, but the women had a tough time make quality first shots and an even harder time making any spares.

“We struggled Saturday, but like we tend to do, we made enough shots to be in position to make match play and even move up in the standings. Sunday though, we never found anything we could be comfortable with, and spares were almost impossible to find. The ladies are going to spend the break we have before our next tournament really focusing on better more consistent shot making.”

Shockey and crew are off until January 15-16 when they compete in the Kegel/ISBPA Midwest Collegiate Classic.