Forest Hills High School Boys Bowling Beats Bayside

The Forest Hills High School boys bowling team won two of its three games against Bayside Tuesday at Jib Lanes in Fresh Meadows, winning the overall match and running its record to 3-2 on the season in Queens III division.

The Rangers took Game A, 769-730; Game B went to the Commodores, 519-447; and Forest Hills captured Game C in the last frame, 694-690, securing the 2-1 victory.

 The Hero: The exciting match came down to the very end, with Forest Hills senior Dylan Bustillo, who bowled an impressive 249 in Game A and raised his average to 202.57, rolling four straight strikes that put an exclamation point on his tremendous evening and gave the Rangers the thrilling four-pin win in the decisive match.

With the contest on the line, Bustillo needed just seven pins to propel Forest Hills past the Commodores — he tossed a strike, and pumped his fist while letting out a triumphant yell.

"I knew I needed close to six or seven pins, so I just threw the ball down [to] see what happened," Bustillio explained. "I was focusing more toward the middle, not throwing it out (to the side), just in case there was a bad shot there, which was something I was trying to avoid. It was really nerve-wracking."

The Turning Point: The match was neck and neck all afternoon, until the final frame of the third game, when the Bayside boys failed to pickup a crucial spare. The trip-up paved way for Bustillio's last-ditch heroics.

The Quote: "You never know what's going down," Forest Hills head coach Ira Wolin said. "As a coach, you can't participate, so you are kind of nervous for the kids. But I kept telling them, 'it's not over until it's over. It's how you finish, it's not how you start, and you can always come back.' And [the Commodores] missed a shot, and we took advantage of it."

 The Bottom Line: If Bayside had picked up the late spare, Commodores coach David Katz said his team would have emerged victorious, regardless of how well Bustillo preformed. The whole team kept their heads in the match for all three games, allowing Bustillo to make the right shot at the right time.

 Key Stat: Bayside had three opens in the tenth frame, while every bowler on the Rangers picked up a marker, Wolin noted, good for a 50-pin swing in the final turn for both squads. 

 Who's Next? Forest Hills High School vs. Flushing High School, Thursday, Oct. 14 at 4:00 p.m. at Jib Lanes.

Teams:................ A........ B......... C.........Final

Forest Hills........769......447.......694............2

Bayside..............730......519.......690............1