Westerville Central’s bid to repeat as champ falls short

It was a quarterfinal round for underdogs Friday during the Division I boys bowling state tournament at Wayne Webb’s Columbus Bowl.

That didn’t serve third-seeded Westerville Central well, though. The defending statechampion Warhawks lost to sixth-seeded StowMunroe Falls 3-1 in the best-of-five Baker game quarterfinals.

“Kids aren’t robots and, unfortunately, we had some tough breaks in the quarterfinal,” said coach Julie Wells, whose team finished seventh. “But I’m proud of them for getting here and trying their hardest. Sometimes, you just don’t get the breaks you need.”

Of the top four seeds, only No. 4 Celina advanced through the quarterfinals. The Bulldogs went on to beat Stow-Munroe Falls 3-1 in the finals.

The Warhawks advanced to the quarterfinals by placing third (3,594 pins) of 16 teams in qualifying, as the top eight advanced.

Last season, Central entered the quarterfinals as the third seed and fell behind sixth-seeded Vandalia Butler 2-1 but won the final two games en route to winning the championship.

This time, the Warhawks fell behind 2-1 but didn’t have such luck. They lost the first game 192-175, won the second 209-148 and lost the third 164-158 before getting eliminated 225-186.

In the pivotal third game, Central had some chances. Even after a foul created an open mark in the seventh frame, the Warhawks had an opportunity. Stow-Munroe Falls finished before Central, which needed just 14 pins in the final frame. But a split caused another open frame.

“(Stow-Munroe Falls) used the momentum and had strikes in four of their first five frames (in game 4), and we had a couple opens; one of them was a split,” Wells said. “It just wasn’t in the cards.”

The other two teams representing the Central District were Marion Harding, which finished 12th (3,217) and Whitehall, which was 13th (3,116).

Westerville Central was led by senior Ryan O’Connor, who finished sixth with a 662 series (258-230-174), junior Devon Richardson (18th, 624) and senior Cameron Gonce (26th, 602).

Whitehall junior Jason Kefauver was eighth (654) and Olentangy Liberty senior Daniel Valz was 10th (652). The top five finishers were first-team all-state, the next five were on the second team and Nos. 11-15 were honorable mention.

“I just wanted to come here, be consistent and do the best I can,” Kefauver said. “I think I bowled pretty well, and I’ll take second-team all-Ohio.”

Groveport senior Chaz Wilson was 19th (623) and Northland senior Cameron Singer finished 34th (582).