Saturday's Central Jersey Winter Classic was, as it is every year, the deepest field in any high school bowling event in New Jersey. 8 of the top 9 boys teams competed, as well as 14 of the top 20 and 18 of the top 25. The girls numbers, while a bit top-heavy, were equally impressive: 9 of the top 10, 11 of the top 13.
The scores on the boys' side were huge, with #4 Woodbridge's (event-best) 1175 leading a group of 4 teams that broke 1100 in game 1. Eight more broke 1000. #8 St. Joseph of Metuchen put up a monster 1132 in game two, their second 1100+ game, to take the lead at 2238, followed by defending CJWC champs #3 Brick Memorial, #1 East Brunswick and Woodbridge, all within 72 pins.
Only the Mustangs could keep up the crazy pace, firing an 1168 in game 3 to post a 3352 set. The only team with a real chance to catch them was East Brunswick, and the table for drama was set with a lane breakdown that forced the Bears to move 60-odd lanes to the corner of Bowlero's high end in the 10th frame of game 2. While the defending TOC champs put up the second highest game 3 in the tournament (1081), they ultimately settled for runnerup status and Brick Memorial took the CJWC title again. The champs were great across the board: John Boughton's 721 led the way, but all five bowlers put up impressive numbers: Alec Hehir (682), Cam Waldheim (666), Michael Guzman (651) and Andrew Varela (632).
St. Joe's held on for a strong 3rd place finish, highlighted by Brendan Sosinski's 299-694, with Woodbridge and their five 600 sets 4th. Jackson Liberty, who was in my preseason top 10 but had been a little quiet early in the season, delivered a tremendous performance, finishing 5th with a 3096 set behind freshman star Justin Bohn's 749.
Six through Twelve: #2 Toms River South (3032), #7 Brick Township (2996), #14 Manasquan (2978), #17 Morris Knolls (2928), #15 North Brunswick (2917), #12 South Brunswick (2900), and #5 Monroe (2886).
Several impressive outings from unranked teams should be noted: Outside of Jackson Liberty, the best finish by a team not even mentioned in last week's rankings was Ocean Township's 15th place (2872). Toms River East (2861 - 16th) finished ahead of several ranked teams, and Howell (2886 - 13th) did even better. Manalapan put up a season-best 2877 to finish a more-than-respectable 14th, and Colts Neck (2807 - 17th) did pretty much the same thing. Good day for Shore-Central-B teams.
Kenny Burdge of Manchester Township put up the event's only 300 game right out of the gate, and finished with the 5th highest series (719) as well. Sophomore Michael Liu of Livingston won his second individual tournament title (he won the Wheeler) of the season with a big 771 series. East Brunswick's Sam Bortnick (766), Bohn, and Boughton were the rest of the top five.
Other 700s were tossed by Darian LeMay of Franklin (713) and Rob Murray of Morris Knolls (707).
The girls' event started with a surprise, as unranked Eastern took the early lead with an impressive 935 game; only #2 Brick Memorial and #3 Brick Township were able to join Eastern in cracking 900. Game two saw the state's top four teams take charge, as #4 and defending CJWC champs Warren Hills and #1 Toms River North joined the Brick schools in the over-900 club, and Memorial took a slim 14-pin lead into the final game.
#6 Manchester put up an excellent 1006 in game three to jump up to a fifth-place finish at 2641, while TRN settled in fourth with a 2662 set. Brick Township shot 943 to pass Brick Memorial by just 17 pins, 2764 to 2747. And defending TOC champs Warren Hills finished with a flurry of strikes, including anchor Katie Winch going out the door in the tenth, to put up the day's best score, 1010, and pass BT by just eleven pins to take the tournament title. Winch (609), Kelcie Mannon (622) and freshman Olivia Ostrander (616) all put up 600s for the Blue Streaks, and senior sub Jackie Nesbeth came through with a career-high 212 game in the clincher.
Eastern held on for a season-best 2550 set, powered by Cloe Lowell's 251-622, and finished 7th, Unranked Carteret turned a lot of heads with a consistent 2430 series to take 8th, and they were followed by #13 Woodbridge (2385), #10 East Brunswick (2380), #8 Monroe (2365) and #19 Colts Neck (2325).
Eastern and Carteret defied the rankings the most, of course, but a couple more unranked teams that turned in good performances were Howell in 13th (2264) and JP Stevens in 14th (2258).
Brick Memorial's Amanda Shelters continued her phenomenal junior season by taking the girls' individual title by over 100 pins with a blistering 279-246-226=751 set, third highest in the state on the season. Caylin Ryan of Brick Township fired 650 to take second, followed by Lowell, Mannon and Ostrander in the top five. Lanasia Neal of South Plainfield (611) and Winch put up the other 600s, with Mackenzie Dudas of TRN (597) just missing.
We also had a smaller tournament on Friday, the Winter Wave Invitational. On the boys' side, unranked Ocean Township fired a 3003 set to take down #14 Manasquan (2nd place, 2990) and #8 St. Rose (2959). Middletown North put up a strong 2908 to finish a surprising fourth. Mark Butler, Doug Rhoades and Matt Redbord each shot between 626 & 632 to carry OT's balanced effort. Between this and the CJWC, I'm guessing OT is getting ranked next week.
Luis Torres of Roselle (Abraham Clark) put up a fantastic 299-734 to finish as the top individual, followed by Mansquan's Dylan Wolfe (681) and Joe Yatsko of Middletown North (663),
Shore Central A teams dominated the girls' side as well, with Ocean Township besting Manasquan by just a single pin and Wall Township slipping past St. John Vianney by just seven pins (2207-2200) to take third. Alexa Tieto of OT was easily the star attraction for the girls' event, taking high game and high series with a 235-657 effort, and her team needed every bit of it to take the championship.
Full results of both tournaments are available, due to the absolutely unreal dedication of Coach Bryan Vargas of Manchester Township, at the Shore Conference Website.
...and this is what happens when you wait too long to do an honor scores list. In addition to the tournament scores mentioned above, we have...
645-639 Amanda Shelters, Brick Memorial
711 Veronica Lewis, Brick Memorial
704 Katie Winch, Warren Hills
703 Rhianna Smith, Hopatcong
654 Goldera Surles, Union Catholic
651 Emma Thies, Jefferson
646 Julianna Forbes, Brick Township
631 Alexa Tieto, Ocean Township
631 MacKenzie Weber, Manchester
629 Victoria Smith, Manchester
626 Mackenzie Dudas, Toms River North
625 Lindsay Pepper, Ramsey
625 Jasmine Brodowski, Jackson Liberty
625 Rachel Katz, Brick Memorial
624 Lanasia Neal, South Plainfield
623 Caylin Ryan, Brick Township
620 Hannah Dalton, Toms River South
618 Kamerin Peters, Toms River North
618 Tori Johnson, Edison
615 Marissa Cosentini, Wayne Valley
606 Rachel Duncan, Indian Hills
604 Margaux Lesser, Teaneck
604 Jillian Dambres, Hunterdon Central
604 Elena Rodriguez, Deptford
602 Gabrielle Capalad, Leonia
790 Wyatt Buchany, Edison
771 Daniel Lenk, East Brunswick
757 Dan Kenny, Maple Shade
733 Dylan Gilligan, Sayreville
731 Joey Steele, Sussex Tech
727 Sam Bortnick, East Brunswick
722 Brendan Sosinski, St.Jose-Metuchen
721 Matthew Marletta, Morris Tech
718 Nick Melchionna, Union
717 Conor Quigley, St. Joseph-Metuchen
716 James Stoveken, Woodbridge
716 David Burrows, South Plainfield
714 Kyle Bauter, Manasquan
712 Cameron LaPlant, JP Stevens
707 Joseph Mahoney, Park Ridge
703 Jared Ammugauan, St. Peter's Prep
702 Andrew Varela, Brick Memorial
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