Peshtigo Girls Finish Fifth; Marinette Boys Claim 2nd

High School State Bowling

Peshtigo and Marinette competed at the 2022 Wisconsin High School Bowling Club State Championships over the weekend, with Marinette's boys taking second in Division 2. The Bulldog girls took fifth and the boys were seventh.

The Peshtigo girls were fifth after 15 games, earning them a spot in the next round, the stepladder finals.

After 10 games, the Bulldogs sat in second place. Despite struggling a bit in the final five games, they were on to the first round of the stepladder finals, where they faced off with Sauk Prairie. The winner would move on to face Beaver Dam.

Sauk Prairie came out with four straight strikes to start game one, and Peshtigo trailed 224-198 after one game. They were beaten 179-152 in game two for a final score of 403-350.

"Sauk Prairie bowled as good as they could have bowled," Peshtigo boys coach Roby Lund said. "Nothing against them. We saw them the next few matches, and they didn't come close to matching what they did against us. They bowled as well as they could have, I believe. I obviously don't see them a lot, but things went their way in that match, and unfortunately we were ousted that first match."

Once it gets into the stepladder tournament, there are just two games to decide who moves on, unlike the 15 games of the preliminary round.

"It doesn't take much. Anything can happen. One good break for them and one bad break for you, and that can be a 30-pin difference somewhere," Lund said.

Antigo went on to win the Division 2 state championship and take the title from the defending champion Bulldogs.

"To get there again, there's nothing wrong with that. They defended their title really well. To make the top five is a big accomplishment," Lund said.

Peshtigo's team was made up of Brenna Fischer, Alaina Archambault, Madison Suchalla, Beverly Bloch, Morgan Nicklaus, and Sydney Lund. It was mostly the same team that won the state title last year. Lund and Nicklaus are seniors.

Tony Strublic and Matt Kowalski are the two head girls coaches. Roby Lund and his dad Tom are the boys coaches.

"We'd like to just thank everybody from Peshtigo again. For years, we've had a great following," Roby Lund said. "And with it being down in Appleton this year, we had a ton of people. We get comments from everybody down there that say Peshtigo has got one of the best followings you'll have and they proved it again, so we'd like to thank everybody for coming down again."

Several Bulldogs and Marines competed in individual competition as well.

Bloch, a junior, shot a 623 in individual competition and was 10th after one round. The top 15 bowlers make the cut to the next round.

Bloch went on to take 10th in the Division 2 field with a score of 1,178 after two rounds. The top five bowlers advanced to the stepladder finals.

She started the second round with a great first game before a more difficult second game. It was the second year in a row she made the second round.

"She's been really consistent, and she's got another year left, so hopefully she can get back and improve on her 10th-place finish and get into the stepladder finals," Lund said. "She had a great weekend, both team and singles."

Brianna Thompson of Campbellsport and Zoey Darwin of Monona Grove were the top two bowlers after the semifinals on Saturday, scoring 1,405 and 1,312, respectively.

Nicklaus, a senior, was 50th in D2 with a score of 516 after the first round. It was her first time making the state tournament. She missed the cut for the second round, but she can be proud of her day, Lund said.

"She's been a really good bowler over four years. She had just missed a few years, and being her first time there, it's not easy with all the people and everything that's going on," Lund said. "She probably didn't score as well as she would have hoped, but she's helped this program immensely over her four years, and she had a really good showing to finish in 50th."

Peshtigo's boys did not advance to the final round, coming 29 pins short of fifth place Lake View Tech, which knocked down 3,013 pins over 15 games. Peshtigo finished with 2,984. Over the course of 15 games, a score of 29 comes down to one or two frames going a different way.

If it weren't for a rough game 14, Peshtigo would have likely made the finals. In that 14th game, the Bulldogs had five splits and missed some spares they would have expected to pick up.

"The kids had bowled fantastic all day long," coach Lund said. "They avoided the bad game until the end. Our worst game was a 170 all day long, and in game 13 we shot 278 and then backed it up with 118. The wheels kind of fell off for that one game. We came back with a decent game, but it wasn't enough at that point. If we shoot even a 150 that game, we're in the stepladder finals."

Ben Hartwig, Paeton Mech, Logan Smith, Alex Engman, Ryan Trippler and Travis Lund made up the Peshtigo team. That 14th game will be hard to swallow after how well they bowled for the majority of the day.

"Our goal going into it was to avoid the bad game. Usually if you stick around a 200 average all day long, you're usually going to make the cut, so our goal was to have our bad games be 165 to 175, and we had done that," coach Lund said. Unfortunately, things came undone in that one game.

"Everything just kept snowballing. Nothing went right. We missed some easy spares and it just didn't fall for us that game. It was unfortunate because the kids really bowled well all day long. To have it come down to one game was kind of tough."

Marinette moved on from the first round of 15 games with a score of 3,100, second of 26 teams. Only Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah was better in qualifying.

The Marines struggled a bit in their first five games of the 15, but they bounced back well to climb all the way to second.

Marinette beat Antigo in the semifinal by a 417-313 score to earn a matchup with top seeded Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah.

Marinette trailed 212-171 in the championship after one game. The Marines bowled a 201 in the second came to ELG's 184, but it wasn't enough to overcome the 41-point deficit from game one, and Marinette fell 396-372.

"They got down right away 41 pins. When you come back that second game, a lot of things have to happen right away. Elkhart Lake hung in there and forced Marinette to get the strikes," Lund said. "Marinette bowled really well all weekend. They had a nice season. They've got a really good team, and they've got a couple of seniors, but some of their best bowlers are coming back next year too."

Peshtigo's Travis Lund and Engman and Marinette's Ethan Schoen, Brady Bolvin, and Parker Thrill competed in the individual state competition.

Bowling in his third state tournament, Lund was the top finisher of the five, taking 20th with a score of 1,281 after the second round. The top scorer after two rounds, Oshkosh West's Xavier Gauthier had a score of 1,441.

Lund was sixth after one round (three games) with a 715. That was just 34 pins off the leader, Janesville Parker's Ethan Jones.

"Quite honestly, he could have had a 740, 750. That's how well he threw the ball," coach Lund said. "He was in the pocket all night long, and with a couple breaks that he really should've had strikes, he really could have shot 750 and been in the lead going into Saturday night's second round."

There were 103 bowlers to start out, with 25 making the next cut. The pins carry over from the first round. And after the second round, the top five move on again.

Coach Lund said Travis had a few splits that hurt him, but he could have been higher than 20th with how well he bowled. But when you fall behind in that round, you need to be perfect, and a few frames just didn't go his way.

"Once you get behind like that, you've got to carry all the strikes and have some breaks," coach Lund said.

After one round, Thrill was 32nd with a 653, narrowly missing the cut. Bolvin took 47th with a 624, and Schoen took 84th at 540. Engman was 83rd with a 542.

"He had a little nerves. It's a big atmosphere and for him, he came back and shot a 190 after that," coach Lund said. "Alex has improved over the years. He's a senior, and for him to make it is a good accomplishment from where he started as a freshman. He's got nothing to hang his head at. He did pretty good."

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