LAURINBURG — The Richmond Senior High School boys’ and girls’ bowling teams both collected nine points in the standings during Thursday’s Sandhills Athletic Conference match.
Bowling against Union Pines and Lee County high schools, the Raiders and Lady Raiders each earned 4-1 wins against Union Pines.
They followed that with a 5-0 sweep against Lee County, which didn’t field teams this season. Both teams improved to 9-3 overall records.
Raiders stay in second place
The boys’ bowling team stayed in contention for an SAC title this season with its two wins on Thursday.
The Raiders defeated the Vikings 575-531, using game scores of 143-121, 120-138, 144-125 and 168-147. The team had 14 strikes and 10 spares between their four games.
Richmond followed that with a 578-0 win over the Yellow Jackets. The team totaled a season-high 17 spares behind scores of 150-0, 142-0, 139-0, 147-0.
“The boys struggled to close out frames against Union Pines,” head coach Ralph Butler said. “They threw some great balls and hit the pocket clean a lot, but just kept getting nine pins and couldn’t seem to pick up the one.
“It was very uncharacteristic of them,” he added. “Fortunately, it was enough to win anyway and pick up four points as Union Pines struggled also. Lee county didn’t bring boys or girls and have struggled to get their program going, so our second match was like an open and they got five points.”
Senior Dexter Mabe had a team-high five strikes against Union Pines, and fellow seniors Alston Johnson and Cameron Way both added four strikes. Senior Colin Wheeler added the other strike.
Junior William White bowled four spares in the Union Pines match, Johnson and Wheeler both had two and Way and senior Cody Eason rolled one spare.
In the second match, Johnson, Wheeler and White all had two strikes for the Raiders. Way added one strike and his four spares were a team-high.
Eason, Johnson and Mabe all bowled three spares against Lee County, Wheeler had two and White and freshman Sam Thompson each added one spare.
Lady Raiders bowl best match of season
The Lady Raiders’ match against Union Pines resulted in team season-highs in several categories.
Matching a season-best seven strikes as a team, the Lady Raiders bowled their best single-game score (168 pins), pin total (504 pins) and average score (126 pins per game).
The girls bowled scores of 96-115, 126-82, 168-99 and 114-88, with the third game being the big difference maker. The final score was 504-384.
Freshman Ava Thompson had a team-best three strikes and added two spares, junior Cadence Thompson had two strikes and two spares and juniors Molly Erwin and Rylie Bohman had one strike each.
Tallying nine total spares, junior Ashlyn Bouldin had three and junior Addison Massey tacked on two more.
“The girls struggled to close frames and pick up spares, but so did Union Pines,” Butler noted. “It seemed like in general everyone’s scores were down. They had one great game against Union Pines, so hopefully they can get more consistent and get more scores like that.
“They picked up nine points total just like the boys, so that should move them up in the standings. They are currently in fourth.”
Against Lee County, the Lady Raiders bowled game scores of 100-0, 98-0, 138-0 and 85-0 to win 421-0.
Bouldin, Bohman and Ava Thompson each had one strike and one spare, and Cadence Thompson added a strike and two spares.
Rounding out the team’s eight spares were two from Massey and one more from Erwin.
Richmond will have a make-up match against Scotland High School on Monday in Laurinburg, followed by the girls’ individual and team tournament on Tuesday. The boys will bowl their individual and team tournament on Thursday.
