You'd think, wouldn't you, that more than 8,500 in pin counts between two bowling teams in 10 games over two days would determine a provincial champion?
Nope.
Vernon's Lincoln Lanes senior boys duo of cousins Lukas Rachwalski and Colton Dranchuk, coached by Kara Kazimer, needed three extra frames, and four more pins, to secure the gold medal at the Youth Bowl Canada (YBC) B.C. Championships held March 1 and 2 in Kamloops and Chase.
With it, Rachwalski and Dranchuk will wear B.C.'s colours at the National YBC finals May 5-7 in Edmonton.
The Vernon pair was part of the six-team Senior Boys division with groups from Prince George, Trail, Vancouver, 麻豆精选, and Port Coquitlam. Each pair met the other teams twice over two days in a match-play style format. That is, you beat the team you're playing against with the higher pin count, you get one point.
Rachwalski and Dranchuk finished with an 8-2 record, same as the duo from Black Diamond Bowl in Prince George, resulting in the tiebreaker, which the Vernon pair won by four pins over three frames.
"When we found out we needed to do the tiebreaker, I told them that their nationals story wasn鈥檛 over," said Kazimer. "They didn鈥檛 come from third place in zones to have their nationals end with a three-frame tiebreaker. And we have practiced that scenario for the past two months.
"It was a weekend of super highs and lows, but the boys battled to the very end and we鈥檙e off to Edmonton."
The bronze medal went to Poco Bowl of Port Coquitlam, who finished two pins total behind Vernon, and had more pin counts than the Prince George team, but only went 6-3 in the head-to-head games.
Rachwalski and Dranchuk rolled 4,319 pins over the two days. The Prince George pair finished at 4,236, while Poco came in with 4,317 pins.
Another Vernon team brought home medals from the Junior Boys Division (each team division featured six squads rolling five games per day over the weekend).
Brothers Axl and Talon Rachwalski, coached by dad Trevor Rachwalski, won bronze despite having the highest pin count of the six teams, 4,061. The duo went 6-9 in the double round-robin, collecting six points.
Poco Bowl and Grandview Lanes were both 9-1 in the preliminary round, with Poco Bowl winning the tiebreaker to advance to nationals.
Two other Lincoln Lanes teams took part at provincials.
The Senior Girls Zone Champions, Sierra Merry and Charleigh Lemay, finished tied for fourth with a 4-6 record. The pair, coached by Natalie Young, finished the 10 games with a pin total of 4,128. The Prince George pair from Black Diamond Bowl won the provincial title with a 9-1 record. Alder Alley from Aldergrove won silver at 7-3.
Castle Bowl of Castlegar took bronze at 5-5.
The Bantam Boys duet of Trentyn Birmingham and Ryker Schnyder, coached by Schnyder's grandfather Paul Schnyder, finished sixth at 1-9, rolling a 10-game pin total of 2,293.
