Pins fall for Niagara women’s team

Contingent from region rolls its way to Canadian 5-pin championships

In the 150 years since Confederation, 5-pin bowling was named as Canada’s fourth greatest invention of the last century, with the sport celebrating its 100th anniversary back in 2009.

The Canadian Open 5-Pin Bowling Championships are the premier event for adult 5-pin bowlers and has been around for 53 years.

There are three steps to take before being crowned as the best in Canada. In early December, bowlers endure a tough 20-game rolloff in an attempt to qualify for a spot on either the men’s, women’s, mixed or seniors teams representing Niagara at the provincial level of the tournament, which is held every year over the Easter weekend at Sherwood Centre in Hamilton.

Additionally, the top three men and top three women qualify to compete in the singles portion of the tournament. At provincials, the singles representatives roll a five-game block after which half the field is eliminated. A second five-game block is rolled and the top five bowlers then move on to a stepladder final.

Teams bowl 13 games over two days in a match play format in which each head-to-head game is worth one point, and the team with the highest team total for the game earns an extra three points, making each match worth a total of eight points.

When the dust settles the top four teams in each division move on to a stepladder final to crown the provincial champs who will then represent Ontario at the Canadian Open Championships May 31-June 3 in Sudbury.

The 53rd edition of the provincial 0pen took place this past weekend. Following is a summary of how each division performed. ‘R’ indicates rookie.

Women’s

Coached by Tim Dixon of Welland, the women’s squad was represented by Valerie Vallee, Rebecca Nieuwold of Welland, Wendy Powell of Dunnville, Tracy Smith and Sarah Stevens of St. Catharines, and Riekie Dutcher of

Hamilton.

The core of this team represented Ontario at the national championships in 2015, and this year’s version bowled like a team that wanted to match the 2015 team’s success. They opened the competition on a roll and cruised through the first day of competition, picking up 33 of a possible 40 points before dropping a 6-2 decision to a red-hot Central Ontario team and suffering their first, and what was to become their only, loss of the round-robin portion of the tournament.

They rolled through Day 2, amassing 42.5 of a possible 56 points to end up in first, 10 points better than the second-place finishers. This enabled the women to enjoy a bye to the championship match in which their eventual opponents would have to beat them twice in order to win.

Central Ontario completed their run to the final match and blanked Niagara 8-0 in the first game of the championship match. In the day’s final match, Niagara was only able to muster two of the three matches, but had a high enough team total to take the match 5-3, earning a berth at the nationals in June.

Smith led the Niagara women taking 12 of her 13 matches, while Stevens took 8.

On the singles side, Vallee ended up as the fourth seed in the stepladder and won her first two matches, before losing in the semifinal match.

However, Chantal Papineau of St. Catharines, bowling out of the Hamilton zone, placed first after the 10-game block and earned the No. 1 seed in the stepladder. She dropped the first game 280172, before regaining her bearings and taking the second match 242-215 to earn the right to join her Niagara compatriots in Sudbury.

Seniors

Coached by Brenda Fraser of Welland, the senior team was comprised of Don Betts, John Wendel, Joe Tavani, Wilma Vanderzwaag and Joanne Durocher of St. Catharines and Cathy Meerman of Welland.

After opening with a 6-2 loss, they rolled along pretty easily along, only dropping three more close matches and ending up in a solid second place, only two and a half points out of first at the end of the round-robin portion of the tournament thereby securing their spot in semifinals.

You will probably never see a closer match in bowling as the Niagara squad lost a heartbreaking match to a strong Western Ontario team. The two teams tied for total pins in the game and Niagara lost 4 ½-3 ½ by virtue of having lost one more match to western – by one single pin – and settling for the bronze medal. Betts paced the Senior team with 12 wins while Wendel took nine and Tavani added 8.

In the singles stepladder, Betts finished his 10-game block as the No. 1 seed and had to await his opponent which ended up being last year’s champion, Bernie Menard of the Ottawa Valley.

Menard won the first match and had to beat Betts again in order to repeat as champ, and ended up punching a head pin in the tenth frame to finish the second game in a tie, forcing a third sudden-death game, which Menard won 213-185 to repeat as champ and leave Betts with the silver medal.

Mixed

Coached by Chris Lyttle of Welland the mixed team was made up of Tyler Wendel, Shawn Pellizari, and Wendy Bonnette of St. Catharines, Mark Cote and Brianna Iannandrea of Welland and Vicky Robins of Grimsby.

The mixed team was the third team of the four Niagara teams to advance to the stepladder finals.

Like most of the Niagara contingent, the mixed team seemed to be on cruise control for most of the tournament, opening and closing with two strong wins, and only dropping four total matches in between.

In a tight field the Niagara team just snuck into the stepladder finals by half a point. In their stepladder match they came up 17 pins short of the overall total despite winning three of the five matches in the process.

Wendel took nine matches for the mixed team while Pellizari took seven and Robins 6.

Men’s

Coached by Ralph Eckhardt of Niagara Falls, the men’s team was made up of Derek Holmes, Paul Asselin, Roy Belanger and David Michael of Welland, Adam Eckhardt of Welland, and transplant Matt Kowalyk of Brantford.

The only team to miss out on the stepladder finals, the men’s team flirted all tournament with the top four spots, floating in between second place and sixth, before dropping their final match 7-1 to end up in fifth place, a mere two points out of the stepladder, and only three points out of third place.

A complete statistical breakdown of the tournament is available online at Https://o5pba.ca/tournament/?id=239.

Niagara Notes: Smith’s 12 wins were the most by any woman in the tournament, while Betts’ 12 were the tournament high for the men … Michael was honoured with a plaque for taking part in his 20th open while Dutcher was honoured for taking part in her 15th and Powell for her 10.