Lucas Punkari
For 17-year-old Lyle Dolph, qualifying for the Youth Challenge Nationals in Winnipeg in March has come with a few different feelings.
“Since it will be my first nationals, I guess I’m kind of nervous going into that,” admitted Dolph, who has been bowling for 14 years.
“But I have got a lot of support and encouragement from everyone here already, and that has been pretty exciting.
“And I’m also the first person to go to nationals in a while [the last being Chris Stamarski about 10 years ago], so it’s actually quite an honour to be able to represent everyone from Fort Frances,” Dolph added.
The local bowler punched his ticket to the nationals, which will take place March 22-25, by finishing in first place at the Youth Challenge provincial roll-offs Dec. 3 in Sudbury, where he garnered a five-game total of 1,247 (249.40 average).
“Going into that event, it was really just about having fun for me,” Dolph explained.
“There were some competitors there who I have bowled against in the past that have beaten me, so I was kind of nervous about going against them,” he noted.
“But you just have to overcome it and that’s what I was able to do during the day.”
As he gained more confidence over the course of his five games, Dolph also found his play improving—with his high score of 287 coming in his third game of the day.
“It was all about cleaning up all of your pins and not leaving anything behind while you played,” Dolph said about his mindset during the event.
“You also want to make sure that you have some good combinations, like following a strike with a spare or getting two strikes in a row, which really helps out a lot,” he added.
Dolph’s performance was so strong, in fact, that he virtually was assured of a spot at the nationals heading into the fifth and final game of the day, which he was informed of prior to hitting the lane.
“My strategy is that I don’t want to really know my scores until the very end. But people were coming up to tell me after my fourth game that my spot was virtually in the bag,” he recalled.
“So because of that, my fifth game [in which he rolled a 237] was more of a fun game for me, and there wasn’t as much pressure as I could have been under,” he reasoned.
Also qualifying for the nationals with Dolph were Thunder Bay bowlers Kyle Gilhooly and Dallas Klassen.
With a couple of months to go before the nationals in Winnipeg, Dolph will be spending some time working on his game, which will include a trip back to Sudbury at the beginning of March to compete in the “Four Steps to Stardom” provincial roll-offs.
“One of the big things I’ll be working on while I’m there will be with playing on different lanes,” he explained.
“There have been some lanes that I’ve bowled at in the past that are sometimes not the greatest, and they are nothing like our lanes here.
“So that is a big change you have to get used to as you have to change up your strategy and your transitions.”
Dolph also will spend the next few months working on making some corrections to his overall game.
“I really have trouble sometimes with leaving a couple of pins up in the corner and just leaving pins out there,” he admitted.
“So a majority of my time will be spent working on that, plus I’ll also be making sure that I’m able to throw the ball consistently right down the middle of the lane.”
Six other local male bowlers competed in Sudbury, with Jordan Sokoliuk being the next-highest finisher in 30th place (906 total).
Also competing were Dustin Good in 35th (869), Brendan Morand in 37th (864), Dallas Gervais in 40th (808), and Raymond Polz in 45th (638).
Among the girls, four Fort Frances bowlers battled it out for a berth at the nationals, with Natasha Petawanaqueb being the highest finisher (16th place) with a 981 total.
Amber and Caitlyn Townson finished in 18th and 21st with scores of 957 and 925, respectively, followed by Alysha Shields in 44th place (735).
