BATON ROUGE - Zander Tran, who bowls for Patrick Taylor in the high school ranks, made it a new Labor Day-October double as he captured the boys open division title in the 60th Louisiana State Youth Match Game Championships at Bowlero Lanes in Kenner.

Tran over Labor Day weekend, captured the top spot in the boys U15 division in the Capital City Strike Out at All Star Lanes in Baton Rouge.

The tournament made a move to October after getting squeezed in other events in its old spot in July and more importantly, as we mentioned last Monday, a South Louisiana location, led to one of the largest qualifying fields in year with over 80 entrants in the four divisions.

Tran had a very good Sunday in the match play round after qualifying as one of 10 finalists on Saturday. He went 8-2 in the 10 match games and needed every pin of it to finish with the best score of 2,447. Without the bonus pins, Tran averaged 220.7 for Sunday’s bowling.

Parker Young finished as the fast-closing runner-up at 2,442. Young won seven matches, including the final position round match, 247-216 over Tran and with the 30 bonus pins, he was just short of making up enough pins to claim the title. Evan Morrison at 2,357 finished third.

Carter Santangelo was the top qualifier with 1,854 for eight games (231.7 average). It would take a 209 average to make the boys finals.

In the girls open division, Parker Blanchard of St. Michael the Archangel, went from leading qualifier on Saturday to champion on Sunday to add her name to the illustrious list of tournament winners.

On Sunday in the seven-game match play, Blanchard won six games, including games 2-3-4 when she shot 225, 211, 244 to post a total of 1,6.09 to win by over 200 pins over Addison Tran at 1,381 (4-3 match play record). 

Blanchard averaged just over 182 on Saturday in the eight-game qualifier and it took a 166 average to make the final four bowlers in the division.

In the regular divisions, Jacob Parsons won the boys title over Nicholas Giang and Kolby Fontenot took the title over Julia Lauricella.

Hopefully this is the start in a big upturn for the event taking date and location into consideration, this proved to be a big success. Hopefully some of the other events will keep this date open so Match Games can at least have a run at all the state bowlers in future years.

Colonial Lanes Classic

No. 7 Louisiana Tech’s women’s bowling team won the Colonial Lanes Classic in Harahan, putting up a combined 12-1 record and going 3-0 in tournament play Sunday.

Fourth year bowlers Kylee Trexler and Rachel Ong were named to the All-Tournament team. Trexler rolled 200 in all five games averaging 216.8, the second most in the field. She bowled a stellar 256 in game five, the second highest of the tournament.

Ong finished third in pins, averaging 212.4 per game. Ong topped out at 227 twice in the five games.

Louisiana Tech defeated No. 9 North Carolina A&T to open the tournament, 4-1, and then Prairie View, 4-2 in best of seven baker play. Facing NC A&T again in the final match, the Bulldogs opened big with three wins and a tie to take a 3.5-0.5 advantage. After dropping game five, the Bulldogs dominated, winning the final game 201-147 to take the tournament.

Tulane took fourth place and bowler Juanelyz Solla finished fourth in the individual standings with a 209.80 average.

That’s it for this week. Until next Monday, good luck and good bowling.