Bellmore-Merrick Bowlers Finish Sixth at Counties

All eyes were on Calhoun senior Chris Vogel as he needed just three more strikes for a perfect 300 score. Having started the game with nine consecutive strikes, all he needed to do was strike out the tenth frame to complete the perfect game. He stepped up to the lane, released the ball, and knocked down all of the pins – except for one.

And that was the way it went for the Bellmore-Merrick bowling team on Saturday.

In an up-and-down performance at the county championships, Bellmore-Merrick finished in sixth place out of 16 teams. The first-place team on the day would be the lone squad to qualify for the state championships; though Bellmore-Merrick was never quite in the running for the top spot, its performance featured many high individual scores, highlighted by Vogel's near perfect game.

"The crowd kind of gets you going so I got pretty pumped up and excited," Vogel said.  "I threw the ball and just barely missed the pocket, and unfortunately I couldn't even pick up the spare."

Vogel would miss the spare after hitting nine pins on his first toss. He finished the game with a 267.

Sixteen teams were competing for the top spot on Saturday; along with Bellmore-Merrick, the schools represented were Baldwin, Massapequa, Wantagh, Farmingdale, Sewanhaka, Hewlett, Hicksville, Clarke, Plainview JFK, Syosset, East Meadow, Lawrence, Mineola, Oceanside and MacArthur.

In normal league-play, each team normally uses four bowlers per game. However, in the county championships, each team uses five bowlers. They bowl three games each, and the 10 teams with the highest accumulative scores bowl another three games later in the day. The six schools with the lowest scores after three games are eliminated from the afternoon session.

The five bowlers coach Joe Bianca chose to start the day for Bellmore-Merrick were Mepham's CJ Marino, Calhoun's Dan Mueller, Calhoun's Mike Cappuzo, Vogel, and Mepham's Ricky Hough. The team began on a high note by bowling a series of 1,082, which put them in second-place after the first game. They were lead by Vogel, who bowled a 258, and Marino, who threw a 255.

"We got off to a great start," Marino said. "We were happy about that because there were a lot of great bowlers here."

The team followed this with their lowest series of the day, bowling a 910. Vogel and Hough were the only ones to top 200, with scores of 200 and 203, respectively.  The score dropped the team from second place all the way to ninth.

This put the team in a position to possibly not qualify for the afternoon session, as they needed to place in the top 10. However, they managed to finish in exactly 10th place after the third game, barely topping rival Wantagh by a mere 27 pins.

This was the game that featured Vogel's near-300, while Cappuzzo had the second-highest score with a 204. Coach Bianca also made a substitution in the game, replacing a struggling Dan Mueller with Mepham's Eric Schildt, who would bowl a 174.  Within two games, the team dropped eight spots from second place to 10th.

"The first game we started off strong and came out in second place," Cappuzo said. "But then we went downhill from there."

Bianca would reinsert Mueller for game four, but the team continued their inconsistency, finishing with a total of 971. Vogel maintained his individual success with a score of 238, while Marino bowled a 206 and Cappuzzo bowled an even 200.

"I just kept hitting my mark," Vogel said.  "I found it early and got the strikes and was able to maintain it throughout."

Game five featured the team's highest score of the day, as they finished with a 1,097. Bianca again replaced Mueller, this time with Calhoun's Scott Castellano. Four players managed to top 200 as Cappuzzo bowled a 243, Marino a 228, Castellano a 233, and Hough a 208. Hough, who averaged a 210 on the year during league-play, only managed to top that score once on the day.

"I thought I threw the ball decently, but I just couldn't carry," Hough said. "I got a bit lazy on a few shots and didn't really throw it great, but overall I'm happy with the way I threw."

Though the score lifted the team to seventh place after five games, they were already out of contention for the top spot. With that thought possibly dwindling in the back of their minds, the team accumulated an underwhelming score in game six with a 924. Hough was the only one to bowl more than a 200, throwing a 223.

At the end of the day, the team was a bit down on its overall performance.

"We have to be consistent to win this thing and we weren't," Bianca said, "We had a couple of big games, but for the most part we didn't really step it up today. It's unfortunate because we didn't come here today to get anything less than first."

After seven hours and six games of bowling, Bellmore-Merrick ended the day in sixth place. The final standings, in order from first to last were: Sewanhaka, East Meadow, Hicksville, Baldwin, Clarke, Bellmore-Merrick, Hewlett, Syosset, Massapequa and Plainview JFK.

The Bellmore-Merrick girls, who also qualified for the county championships, finished in fourth place.