Van Buren Pointers claim 6A state tourney; VB’s Franco top individual bowler

Following the first game from his bowlers at Thursday’s 6A State Tournament, Van Buren coach Kevin Ross wasn’t sure if his team had a chance. From the second game on, the Pointers picked up the pace and in the end, they were the ones raising the championship trophy. Van Buren claimed its first state bowling title since 2010 by winning the 6A championship, which took place at Bowling World. The Pointers rolled a total score of 4,190 pins, beating runner-up Conway by nearly 100 pins. “After the first game, I was not going to write us off, but we were way below what we have normally done and usually when that happens with those teams, we were going to be down 100, 150 pins just immediately,” Ross said. “But when the second scores came in and found out where we were, it was like, ‘Wow, we’re still in this thing.’ “They take this so serious and they are competitors beyond as much as anybody. They just build each other up, they build each other up.” The Pointers were also helped by the fact that they had three of the top four bowlers individually. Leading the way was junior Omar Franco, who rolled a total score of 664 (211-227-226). But there are two interesting things to know about him. First, Franco was in his first year of bowling, having picked up the sport after previously playing soccer. Then, he had never medaled before in a previous bowling tournament, until Thursday. “My thoughts are it was a lot of hard work from all of us, including our team and myself,” Franco said. “I’ve been only bowling for a year, and it’s been almost hard work coming out here three times a week bowling. ... I’m really proud of myself and my team for making state and winning it; it’s been a lot of hard work to put into what I do.” Franco had placed fourth at last week’s 6A-Central conference tournament in Conway, which the Pointers also won. “I wanted to pick up more spares than I did at conference and roll comfortably as much as I can even with me shaking nervously, and my mindset was to roll the best that I can, better than conference,” Franco said. ?(My approach) was looking to the next frame; the most important frame was the very next frame. ... I think I had a good chance at (every frame), just bowl better than the previous one.” Two more Pointers tied for third place as junior Caleb Jenkins (195-211-224) and Steven Dye (207-225-202), the only senior on the squad, each finished with a total score of 630. “I started when I was in ninth grade and every year we were close, but we just couldn’t get it,” Jenkins said. “Then this year coming into it, I knew we had a shot. ... It’s just actually mind-blowing to me because we worked so hard, we put in all this effort and all the individual adjustments that we’ve made over the years, it’s just awesome. “I think we also had a lot more experience than some of these other people. We’ve had at least three, four (bowlers) on these teams that have been here for a couple of years and we understand the pressure that it has. ... We’ve been doing this for a long time now and we were just ready to go.” Since it was his last bowling tournament as a Pointer, Dye was especially grateful to get to win state and he hung on to the trophy as much as he could following the tournament. “It feels great, finishing the bowling season out swinging and winning the championship just made me more happier than ever,” Dye said. “I felt like we were going to take first or second, but we did our best and we came out on top. It feels great; I’m just speechless right now.” Another Pointer, Jake Pullan, finished 18th with a 554. Pullan, a junior, had been the gold medalist at last week’s conference tournament. Conway was second in the boys standings, followed by Fayetteville and Bentonville. Northside finished sixth with 3,888 total pins while two-time defending state champion Southside came in seventh with 3,826. The Mavericks, who were in the midst of a rebuilding season, do have a major building block in place for the future as freshman Andrew Stephens ended up as the silver medalist, finishing second behind Franco with 650 pins (233-185-232). “It’s been a grind to get here. ... I’ve been doing this for two years, so it just took work to get to where I’m at,” Stephens said. “It’s been a long ride to get here.” Stephens added the equipment he was using helped, as did the familiarity with Bowling World, which is Southside’s home lanes. “It was just referring to past practices, like this marker or this mark,” he said. “It was more or less consistency, you’ve got to keep a lot of consistency in this game or else you’ll fall behind.” Northside also had an All-State bowler, as Connor Seuasingnouane finished ninth by rolling a 609 (150-257-202). His Grizzly teammate, Checotah Benton, finished 13th with a 575. In the girls division, Cabot claimed the team championship with 3,849 pins ahead of Conway, while Rogers Heritage was third. Conway’s Jaymie Burrow was the gold medalist by rolling a 648 (225-224-199), with Cabot’s Bree Wilson coming in second with a 582 and Bentonville West’s Marlyssa Lee was third with a 559. The top individual girls bowler from the area was Northside’s Destini Hernandez, who finished 15th with a 483 as the Lady Bears finished sixth in the team standings with 2,995 pins. Van Buren’s Miranda Lockey placed 21st with a 436, while Southside’s Rachel Salisbury was 22nd after rolling a 429.

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Van Buren High School Athletics

VAN BUREN POINTERS CLAIM 6A STATE TOURNEY; VB’S FRANCO TOP INDIVIDUAL BOWLER

BUCK RINGGOLD

Times Record | 2/13/2020

PHOTO CREDIT: Brian D. Sanderford