GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – A busy summer of high-level competition for area youth bowlers gets started this weekend when four competitors from the Berkshire County High School League head to Columbus, Ohio, for the U.S. High School Bowling National Championship.

 

Lee High’s Lauren Scheurer and Devyn Fillio, Taconic’s Danielle Mathes and Monument Mountain’s Noah Walker all qualified from their performances at the State Championship tournament in March.

 

All four also will be part of a larger county contingent headed back to the Midwest later this summer to compete in the Junior Gold Championships in Minneapolis in July.

 

For Fillio, Sunday’s high school nationals will mark her fifth time on the national stage. The rising junior for the Wildcats competed at this competition and the Junior Golds the last two summers.

 

“Honestly, it’s a really fun experience,” Fillio said this week. “I got to meet a bunch of the best female bowlers statewide and from the whole country. I met this one girl from Hawaii who was super good and plays on TV now. Just seeing everyone roll so well was fun.

 

“Everyone was super nice when you went. People you bowl on the lane with are really talkative. It kept everyone positive.”

 

In some ways, that mirrors the county league each winter, when players from different schools seemingly spend as much time encouraging their opponents as they do their teammates.

 

“In Berkshire County, once we start bowling, if we’re on the lane throwing the ball, we can get competitive,” Mathes said. “But once we’re off the lane, we’re usually really friendly toward each other.”

 

Mathes is expecting the same kind of camaraderie this weekend. She has one previous experience in a national tournament, having qualified for the Junior Gold event last year, the summer before her ninth-grade season.

 

“It was definitely full of anxiety,” she said of her first go-around. “I’ve watched multiple people go through the phases of trying to get to Junior Gold. Myself, I worked very hard to get there. I only made it there last year the last tournament I bowled. I qualified in April.”

 

This year, Mathes qualfied in October, giving her a little more time to prepare mentally for the experience.

 

“I mostly was [anxious] when I was there and over-thinking things,” she said. “I’m with a lot more of my friends this time in my squad, so it should be more comfortable.”

 

For Scheurer, a rising ninth-grader for the Wildcats, this is the first year she qualified for a national tournament in her first season on the varsity squad at Lee.

 

“I took it more seriously this year than the other two years I did it,” Scheurer said. “I just enjoy [bowling] and enjoy the people who do it, so I thought it would be a good idea to take it more seriously.

 

“Honestly, I didn’t think that I was going to do as well as I did at the [state] tournament. I didn’t think I would make it this far. … I had a good season. A lot of my games this year, I set a personal record.”

 

Scheurer rolled a 134.5 average this winter, which put her in the middle of the pack in the league. By the season’s end, she reached the semi-finals at the state individuals, where she lost to teammate Fillio, who fell to another Wildcat, Maddy Kotek, in the state final.

 

Mathes and Walker also advanced to match play at the state tournament, earning them berths in this weekend’s High School Nationals.

 

Eight of the top 10 bowlers in the county high school league are slated to compete in the Junior Gold tournament, July 13-19, in Minnesota.

 

That group is headed by Mathes’ Taconic teammate Luzis Brown, who this winter was the only athlete in the league to post an average north of 200 (202.1) while recording the high game in league competition (279).

 

Also scheduled to compete at the Junior Gold event are Taconic’s Kyla Croshier, Lee’s Jaden Parks and Nate Terry, Monument Mountain’s Mason Bailey, Pittsfield High’s Jamari Carnute, McCann Tech’s Connor Snow and Tyler Croshier.

 

At the Junior Gold competition, they will face the more challenging “sport shot” lane conditions. Unlike “house shot,” the more common, recreational setup they see in high school matches, where oil is applied in a way that tends to keep the ball in the center of the lane, sport shot set-ups have the oil applied more thinly and evenly across the lane.

 

The sport shot lanes also have the oil applied in various patterns, which are unknown to competitors when they begin their game and which can be affected by the bowls thrown over the course of a competition.

 

That is why bowlers are allowed to bring up to five balls into competition and why each athlete’s allotted practice time is so critical.

 

“Junior Gold is a lot trickier, mental-wise,” Fillio said. “With how hard the oil patterns are, we see kids so distraught and parents putting a lot of pressure on them.

 

“When we’re practicing, we can use whatever we want to figure it out,” said Fillio, who is bringing nine balls with her to Ohio this weekend. “But once the competition starts, you’re only allowed five.”

 

The High School Nationals will see this weekend’s bowlers roll four games on Sunday before 276 (180 boys and 96 girls) advance to Monday’s “survivor rounds.” At the Junior Gold tournament, bowlers bowl a minimum of 16 games (in four four-game blocks) before a cut down to one-seventh of the field that bowls an additional five games. A second cut, to a maximum of 64 bowlers, is followed by five more games (26 total at this point) to determine who advances to match play.

 

That is a lot of bowling over the course of a week but also a fair amount of down time. Fillio knows how she plans to spend hers.

 

“You have time to rest, have fun, focus and watch your friends bowl,” she said. “I like to say we’re a family and a community in our high school bowling. We always go and support the kids we know. And I know some kids from Connecticut and go and watch them bowl, too.

 

“The bowling community is really a family no matter where you bowl.”