2/3/10 NJTCC-Bergen Champs: a sense of déjà vu

The title of this entry is fitting for several reasons. 1) As was the case with the North Jersey Tri-County Conference's predecessor last year, it took a couple of days to put the final update together, but I was able to make it out to Bowler City for NJTCC-Bergen Position Day on Wednesday (as I write this, it's now the weekend. But hey, it's not like the final standings changed, and being snowbound in Seaside gave me a chance to finally get caught up on my blogging). Plus, 2) the final standings of the state's lone one-and-done league bore striking resemblance to those of the old NNJIL. So, we do lose the element of surprise a bit — and, come to think of it, that reminds The Messenger of one of the top stories from said NJTCC Position Day.

As chronicled by TM's alter ego at this link, Ridgewood head coach Dick Bennett earned his 100th win in boys bowling in fairly exciting fashion. The Maroons beat St. Joseph, 5-2 in the match, taking total wood by a count of 2,055 to 2,025. In fact, the wood was tied entering the 10th frame of the final game. A late turkey by senior Kevin Clough helped Ridgewood rebound from about an 80-pin deficit midway through, and freshman Kevin Clough (217–560) clinched the victory before senior anchor Mitchell Scher put a bow on it by striking on his final league roll. In the setback, the Green Knights got some nice efforts from Kevin Walters (211–576) and Jack Perez (222–568).

But, as stated, that was just one of the top stories. Congratulations to the Bergen Catholic boys and Immaculate Heart girls for "repeating" as league champs (even though it was technically a different league this year, and there was only one division each for both boys and girls in the NJTCC).

BC entered the Position Round with a relatively safe eight-point lead on Fair Lawn but put away the Cutters, 7-0, just for good measure behind a 213–559 from leadoff man Charles Long and a 224–633 from anchor Rob Grippo. Well, maybe "put away" is a bit misleading, since FL got a 246 from Ryan Cauwels and a 221 from Chris Auld in Game 1 and only lost by one pin, 803-802.

IHA, meantime, was its usual dominant self, going 13-0 in match play and losing only one game all year (courtesy of Bergen County quarterfinalist Bergen Tech). Since there were an uneven number of teams in the league, the Blue Eagles were one of two teams that ended up bowling against their own averages for Position Day — which, if you want to look at it this way, technically means that IHA beat itself, 7-0. TM is far too confused by such a notion to delve into it further, but how about Colleen Blake rolling a pair of 199s and Nicole Linder with a solid 207–586?

P.S. The other team to "bowl itself" was the Paramus boys, who finished 9th out of 9 but, over the course of this season, always seemed to perform much better than they used to anytime The Messenger saw them. Michael King started things off with a 244 and southpaw Neil Sheth (Parker Bohn III All-Star alert!) helped the Spartans' 7-0 "victory" with a 205–606. It's a shame this team won't be at sectionals, I really thought they made some great strides this year.

Ok, time for another dip in... The Stream of Consciousness: Don Bosco anchor Vin Siekierski put together a clean 225 in Game 3, only to be outdone by Teaneck anchor Joshuah Romero, whose 255 capped a 673 series and a 5-2 Highwaymen win. Of course, the Ironmen did have to bowl without senior Ryan Cobb — something about a "National Signing Day," where he was indisposed inking a "Letter of Intent" to play football at Virginia... over on the Teaneck girls' score screen, The Messenger spotted a bowler named Billie Jean K. — why wasn't she bowling against the boys? — alright, it turns out the "K" stood for "Kurek," but she had a 166 in Game 2 trumped at least a few of the boys scores on the day. That said, let's move on before TM is asked to turn in his Man Card... Shot-of-the-day candidate: lefty Gwen Widicus picked up a 7-9 split in her first game for the Ridgewood girls, and fellow port-sider Shelby Taylor helped seal a 5-2 Maroons victory over Fair Lawn with a 235 in the finale. Also, at the risk of being sent to awful-pun purgatory, "Ridgewood" will be known as "Closewood" for the rest of this entry, since the girls' margin of total pinfall (1,735 to 1,710 for FL) was even narrower than the boys' margin against St. Joe's... and how could we forget to mention Bergen Tech's George Steffani? He began Game 1 with 9 conescutive strikes before leaving a flat 10 on his 10th ball. The end result: a 278 and a house-leading 679 series for the day, leading the Knights to a 5-2 win over Hackensack. In fact, BT faced Hackensack in the girls' Position Round, too, and the Knights won that match 5-2. Told you the title of this entry was fitting...

FINAL NJTCC STANDINGS (Points Won, Points Lost, Team Average)

Boys Division	PW	PL	Avg.
Bergen Catholic	95	24	781.7
Fair Lawn	80	39	776.5
Bergen Tech	69	50	728.0
Hackensack	58	61	718.0
Don Bosco Prep	57	62	734.5
Teaneck	55	64	702.8
St. Joseph Regional	44	75	697.7
Ridgewood	42	77	696.2
Paramus	39	80	683.5

High game: Ryan Cobb (DBP), 296; 5 other bowlers tied for 2nd @ 278
High series: Cobb, 748; Auld was 2nd with a 739
High average: 1. Auld, 215.25; 2. Grippo, 209.61; 3. Steven Patchen (BT), 206.06; 4. Mike Parsons (BC), 200.71.

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Girls Division	PW	PL	Avg.
Immaculate Heart	89	2	685.1
Bergen Tech	58	33	591.4
Hackensack	57	34	600.9
Fair Lawn	51	40	567.3
Ridgewood	38	53	545.6
Paramus	18	73	460.5
Teaneck	11	80	441.7

High game: Linder, 265; Taylor Strothman (IHA) was 2nd with a 244
High series: Linder, 689; Strothman 2nd with a 633
High average: 1. Linder, 212.72; 2. Strothman, 171.28; 3. Blake (165.0); 4. Adriana Stapelman (FL), 162.59.

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Looks like it's going to be a busy week ahead — at the moment, The Messenger is planning on being at the NJTCC-Passaic finale tomorrow; he will definitely be at the North Jersey girls sectional tournament at its new, snow-postponed time of 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday (Feb. 9) at Bowler City. Which, if we were better at bumping this site's Twitter account, you may have already known about.

That said, be sure to check out the NJBB's Twitter page at http://twitter.com/NJBRG for game-by-game updates of the North Jersey girls sectional finals on Tuesday! See you on the other side...

–TM