2/17/10 NJSIAA Individual Finals

The Messenger's predecessor wrote it in this very space last year, and TM his ownself echoes the sentiment... one of his all-time pet peeves is having to report on an event that he didn't actually see live. Again, it is a necessary evil in journalism — especially working with weekly papers — since even the best reporter can't be all places at all times. And, as the NJBB remains in its infancy, we have a long way to go before we're the best at anything.

Missing Wednesday's State singles tournament was perhaps even more frustrating to TM this time around, as he not only missed out on grabbing the brass ring for bowling reporters (covering a 300 game), he missed it twice: big kudos to Kevin Macchia of Ramapo and Jason Maulbeck of Madison for tossing perfectos in the very first game of the tournament to throw down the gauntlet for what was (I presume) an outstanding, high-scoring day at Carolier Lanes. Did we mention that Macchia bowls for one of the key schools in the NJBB's prime coverage area?

However, TM can't change what happened, and perhaps it was good that the tournament fell on Ash Wednesday, because it served as a grounding reminder that all we are is dust in the wind... oh wait, that was Kansas. Whatever — ashes to ashes, dust to dust, tomorrow is another day, and next year I'm taking this entire week off from my day job so this site can cover State finals week properly.

(No, seriously, within 30 minutes of hearing about Macchia's 300 from our friends/rivals at Varsity Aces, The Messenger e-mailed a vacation request for the third week of February 2011 to his supervisor, because he refuses to be beaten to the punch again. Fool me once...)

All that said, I have been able to peruse some of the scores from the State individual finals, and since this site is never lacking for opinion, I will blindly comment on what happened by belly-flopping into:

The Stream of Consciousness... More often than not, the girls from North Jersey seem to have trouble navigating the lanes in North Brunswick. The one notable exception to this rule: Sussex County. Congrats go out to No. 2 seed Sparta junior Nicole Chanin, who is now No. 1 after not only lighting up the house with a 757 morning series, but also posting the high game of qualifying (269) AND the stepladder finals in defeating top-seeded Morgan Brown of East Brunswick, 249-212 in the title match. Chanin became the first North girl to emerge as individual champ since Newton's Krista Cutler in 2003 (the stepladder format began in 2002). FYI, Crystal Keller of Lenape Valley qualified as the No. 3 seed, helping Sussex County equal Middlesex County (Brown and South Brunswick's Jackie Sutton) with two entrants in the stepladder 5. Must be the air up there... East Brunswick still came away with a title in the form of junior Danny Holihan, who bested Brick Memorial's Brandon Barboza, 218-209, in the boys finals. So no sweep for the Bears, but we did get a sweep of A) juniors and B) right-handers. That's right, for all the crowing he does about southpaw superiority, The Messenger is throwing a bone to the starboard-siders... P.S. lefty Alex Prell of Wood-Ridge also made a bid at perfection with a 9-bagger to start off his stepladder match against No. 4 Domenick Luongo of Brick Memorial. The third-seeded senior ended up with a 279-258 victory and top billing in The Record's "North Jersey Sports" section on Thursday (an online version of the article is here)... Brick Memorial gave Ocean County two representatives in the boys final 5, but Bergen County also acquitted itself quite well on the day. In addition to Prell and Macchia in the stepladder, Bergen Catholic senior Rob Grippo (9th place, 1,354), North Arlington senior Matt Priore (12th, 1,330) and Bergenfield sophomore Marc Solangon (14th, 1,299) also advanced to the afternoon session... Remembering our North Jersey roots, the NJBB must also acknowledge the efforts of Nutley's Nick Rizzi (8th, 1,362) and DePaul's Greg Corradi (10th, 1,332) in the boys tournament, as well as those of Jefferson's Heather Van Dyk (10th, 1,255), IHA's Nicole Linder (11th, 1,225), Clifton's Sonja Shirak (13th, 1,194) and Ridgefield Park's Stacy Fernandez (18th, 1,141) in the girls tourney... finally, congratulations to Morgan Brown for shooting a 2,622 on the day. That's right — you thought fantasy football fanatics went crazy trying to tell apart the Adrian Petersons that play running back for the Vikings and Bears? Having not been to Carolier in person on Wednesday, I have no way of differentiating (aside from reading their order of finish) between the Morgan Brown of East Brunswick (2nd place, 1,428) and the Morgan Brown of West Deptford (14th, 1,194).

You see? THIS is the type of stuff I need to be present to document. Lucky for The Messenger, there is one more tournament left to tweet about, blog about and just generally enjoy — the boys State team finals are tomorrow at Carolier, starting 9:30 a.m. "SHARP!", according to the NJSIAA.

See you on the other side...