MacDonald golden at bowling nationals

Medicine Hat’s Special Olympics bowlers wrapped up their time at nationals in Prince Edward Island Friday, with one athlete claiming a gold medal and a team barely edged out of Saturday’s playoff round.

Ten-pin bowler Mitchell MacDonald, 27, wound up the all-events champion in his Male 8 division, counting 1,299 pins — three more than Ontario’s Matthew Cormier. Cormier won the singles competition Friday but MacDonald’s scores between the week’s events — including team, doubles and singles — earned him the overall title.

Fellow 10-pin player Chuck McDonald was sixth in all-events play in his Male 10 division with a score of 1,282, and was fifth in singles play Friday.

MacDonald and McDonald teamed up Thursday to take fifth in their Male 5 doubles division.

As for the 5-pin men, the Medicine Hat team of Liam Carter, Rylan Kersey, Brydon Marchand, Sinjin Soper and Blair Yuhas finished 5-2 in their round robin, one of three Alberta teams competing in the B division. On Thursday they lost 7-1 to Saskatchewan and beat Manitoba 5-3, while on Friday they beat Yukon and another Alberta team 5-3.

Soper won bronze in his Male 4 division, going 112 pins over his average. Yuhas was seventh in Male 7, Kersey was fifth in Male 3, Marchand was sixth in Male 9 and Carter was sixth in Male 4.

Despite the strong record, the team was edged out of Saturday’s three-team medal round. Standings were based on total number of games won, not matches, and Medicine Hat tied with a Manitoba team at 30. Manitoba only went 3-4 but that didn’t factor in, nor appartently did the fact Medicine Hat won their head-to-head matchup. The official results sheet only states that Manitoba took third as the result of a tiebreaker, not mentioning what the tiebreaker was.

Medal ceremonies and closing ceremonies Saturday bring to an end the week for nationals, with athletes travelling home Sunday.