(Darren note: even though this has my name on the byline, this is by Greg Tartaglia)
So you say you read All-North Jersey bowling today, and you’re wondering who this “Greg Tartaglia” fellow is (or not). If you’ve been to tournaments at Bowler City, Parkway Lanes or Carolier Lanes in the past decade and spotted a tall chap in a Jets overcoat toting a full-sized notepad, chances are we’ve crossed paths. If not, a brief intro:
I began covering bowling WGHT 1500AM – you know, back when they used to broadcast local sports – in 2002, when I went to Carolier and saw the Clifton boys win the state title. I did a report on Sports Overtime the day after President’s Day, and it became a yearly staple from there. Of course, the state finals eventually got spread out over three different days… and my pal Jon Fass didn’t coin the “Gutterball” nickname until 5-6 years later… and I’ve actually blogged under some other pen names in the past few years as well. The point is, once GHT waived [sic] goodbye to its sports department, R.I.P Gutterball Greg (2002-2012).
Then, this winter, The Record called on me to write the 2013 All-North Jersey bowling package. With a publication date of St. Patrick’s Day. And, did I mention my lucky number is 13? So, while it’s not the same medium, ol’ GG is lucky enough to be doing one more bowling season wrap-up. Special thanks to the Aces for calling me in from the bullpen.
Now to business: as was true in radio, a lot of good stuff from interviews with our All-North Jersey honorees didn’t make it into the paper. One loyal reader also expressed to me some disappointment that there wasn’t a “Top 10 memorable things” written about bowling season. Well, guess what – the resolution to both concerns is here!
To be fair, I won’t put them in any particular order. Some may call that a copout. I prefer to think of it as a spell-out…
TEN THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT THE 2012-13 BOYS/GIRLS BOWLING SEASON
G is for Girl power – Since GG can also stand for “good gentlemen,” let’s go ladies first. For the first time since I can remember, North Jersey schools left the girls state team finals with a lot to be happy about. Holy Angels finished second in Group 2 for the highest placement ever by a team from “North Jersey”… or at least the area as defined by The Record/Herald News. More incredible to me is that out of the whole North section (which also includes the entirety of Hudson, Morris, Sussex, Essex, Union and Warren counties), only two schools have ever won a state girls bowling championship in the 40-year history of the tournament (Emerson of Union City in 1976 & St. Joseph of the Palisades in 2009). And of course, both are now closed. But again, let’s try to focus on the positive… Ridgewood had the best score of any local team at States – 41 pins higher than Holy Angels, in fact – and was fourth in a loaded Group 4. Those two probably received the strongest consideration for Team of the Year: both won their leagues, both won sectional titles. The fact that the Angels won the season-opening Crusader Classic and went a bit farther in the Bergen County tournament tipped the scales in their favor. Speaking of Counties…
U is for Upsets, Underdogs & the Unexpected – Raise your hand if you foresaw the Westwood girls making a run at the Baker finals of the Bergen tournament (and if you’re a Cardinals fan, be honest). Or if you saw the Mahwah girls later knocking off the Cards for the Big North Patriot Division title. Ditto for the Northern Highlands girls winning Group 3 the North sectional tournament. For the boys, how about Pompton Lakes winning the Passaic County championship? I still have to find out if Pompton is the first Group 1 school ever to do so. These are the stories that motivate me to go watch Hoosiers again – and wish that someone would make a bowling-movie equivalent.
T is for Three Hundred – Ah, the score of a perfect game. I did manage to compile a list from The Record archives of nearly all the 300 games by North Jersey bowlers in the last 30 years, and perhaps another day I’ll have space/time to post it. Anyway, the boys list is close to 30 names, and three joined this season: Cory Heitler of Fair Lawn, Jordan Lopez of Lyndhurst and Jake Rollins of Glen Rock. Lopez’s was the third perfecto in Bergen County tournament history and part of the fourth-best series ever at said tournament (1,427), behind only Lodi’s Charley Bruno (1,481 in 1983), North Arlington’s Jonny Santiago (1,464 in 1986) and Cliffside Park’s Mark Orofino (1,434 in 1986). Lopez is also the second Bergen boys individual champ from Lyndhurst, joining M. Gingerelli from 1979 (speaking of research, can someone help us unearth the winners’ first names from the 1970s?)… Then there was the 300 by Brittany Hovan of Paramus. This, I wish I could have written more about – because in the aforementioned search of the archives, I found out that there have only been THREE girls to roll perfect games in Bergen County history. Nikki Vucak of Paramus Catholic did so last season. The only other was by IHA’s Dyanne Robles in 1999. Seriously, this may have to become a feature for next season.
T is for Tough Calls – Ok, we all know about the [hopefully civil] arguments that ensue when Athlete of the Year talk starts. As most of the other Aces will probably tell you, the final call isn’t always an easy one. For the boys, I went with Rollins based on several reasons: he finished in the top 15 at every major tournament and averaged 240 during the most important time of the season, February Fever (hey, basketball has March Madness, I can use that one for bowling). True, Isiah Tolbert of Passaic Tech did beat him at in the stepladder finals at the state singles tournament – but Tolbert didn’t have quite as a good a day at his county tournament. Rob Gilbert of Hackensack finished fourth at counties and second at sectionals, and he had a slightly higher overall average, but his run at States ended in the first round. Heck, Lopez is the Bergen champ, but then again, his postseason run ended at sectionals. Steven Doughty of Bergen Tech was second at counties and won the section, but his league average was a bit lower than the others’. Please note, these are not knocks against these guys, but when you can only pick one Bowler of the Year, there have to be some deciding factors… incidentally, girls Bowler of the Year Lexus Lopez of Lyndhurst was a slightly easier choice – though not by much, because Hovan was impressive, too. For the girls, the first team/second team calls were the biggest challenge, because there were more than seven qualified candidates. Isabelle Nemeh led the Wayne Hills girls to the Passaic County title (incidentally, she was a member of those really good DePaul girls teams a couple years ago before transferring). Morgan Buckey was the anchor bowler for Holy Angels and had one of the highest league averages on the team, just not as high in tournaments. Same goes for Vucak, who still has her senior year left, and I’d personally wager on it being a good one. And while I wasn’t afforded more than 7 spots on second team (or an “honorable mention” category) either, it should be noted that Jen Schablik of Ridgewood, Marissa Rivers of Westwood and Julieanne Kornberg of Pompton Lakes all had fine seasons and received strong consideration as well.
E is for Even Tougher Calls – This rubric deals specifically with notes & quotes that got “left on the cutting room floor,” as film editors say. Both Bowlers of the Year gave me a lot of good stuff that there just wasn’t room for in the paper, Lexus Lopez in particular. She talked about being a fan of “underestimated” players like Ray Rice (who is one of the reasons she’s a Ravens fan) and Joakim Noah (the reason she likes the Bulls) and the level on which she identifies with them. Granted, they’re not girls bowling on a mostly-boys team, and she didn’t have to sleep on anyone’s couch while trying to make the Lyndhurst varsity (she tells me Noah did when breaking into the NBA – I seem to remember Wayne Chrebet doing the same when in Jets training camp), but you get the idea… girls Coach of the Year Bob Tschinkel of Northern Highlands had another story that there just wasn’t room to tell in its entirety. I did mention his daughter Karen bowling for IHA primarily because, well, if I was a North Jersey bowling fan doing the reading instead of the writing, and I didn’t already know his story, I’d wonder, “hey, is he related to that girl from IHA?” Truth be told, he gave me a lot more names than that. Apparently, four-fifths of the Hackensack boys starting lineup came through the Maywood Youth Athletic Association during Tschinkel’s days of coaching there, including Mssrs. Draney, Garcia, Gilbert and Santoro. And trust me, the Comets warranted major boys Team of the Year consideration. However…
R is for Rollins Reliable – As was the rest of the Glen Rock boys lineup. It seemed like in every tournament that included the two, Hackensack would shoot ridiculous scores (that 3,134 at sectionals was among the best I’ve ever seen in North 1A), and then the Panthers would shoot even better (3,292 is the North 1A record, if I’m not mistaken). Both teams had two bowlers named to the All-Bergen first team – Gilbert and John Draney for Hackensack, Rollins and Tyler Blind for Glen Rock – and, frankly, if naming Co-Teams of the Year was an option, I might have gone that route. Of course, it was not, but either way, these two squads put on some of the best displays of bowling I’ve ever seen in North Jersey.
B is for Baker games – And you thought Athletes of the Year sparked debate. Bergen County has been using the Baker-style tournament to determine its girls champ for five seasons now, and for the second straight year, the fifth seed in the eight-team bracket pulled a string of upsets on its way to the finals (No. 5 Ridgewood last year, No. 5 Westwood this year). Some coaches have told me they don’t like the format because the best team, or at least the one that shoots best in qualifying, doesn’t always win. Others like the fact that more teams are in it until the end and not just going through the motions if they’re out of contention by midday. Is there a compromise? GG will throw out the idea of a stepladder. It works to reward the high scorers at the state singles tournament – heck, the same principle works in the Big East basketball tournament: give the top teams a bye to the later rounds. Just a suggestion for right now… I will state much more declaratively that I’m glad the state team tournaments went back to three traditional games for group play and left the Bakers for the Tournament of Champions. The concept of two traditional games plus five Bakers to make up a team’s “Game 3” score was novel, but that’s about all it was, at least to this observer.
A is for Audreys & April – Audrey Jantzen coached Passaic Tech to the North 1B, Group 4 boys sectional title this year. Audrey Lelyo coached Paramus Catholic to the Bergen County boys championship last year. You don’t have ladies coaching all-men’s teams in too many other sports (besides maybe volleyball), but it makes for some pretty neat storylines in bowling. Kudos also to April Millian for leading co-ed New Milford to the NJIC Patriot title and another appearance in the state finals… And no, I didn’t forget about Judy Lucia leading Pascack Valley to the North 1A, Group 3 title, it’s just that her name didn’t start with an ‘A’, so it didn’t fit the theme of the subhead. Although it does end with an ‘A’… let’s just move on.
L is for Lefties – Being one myself, I can’t help but take notice of the good ones. Andrew Wierzbicki of Indian Hills and Austin Masser Jr. of Secaucus fit the bill, and yes, these were two more tough calls when it came to choosing first and second team, because their numbers were just so close to the others’… Isiah Tolbert reminds me a little bit of another PCT southpaw, Carlos Duarte, and he was named Bowler of the Year twice as an upperclassmen, so the freshman Tolbert still has plenty of time to carve out his legacy – er, the rest of his legacy. That 769 series that won him the North 1B individual title was a pretty nice start… If there was a Lefty of the Year award for the girls, it’d have to go to Kathleen Blehl of IHA (along with our apologies for the misspelling in the All-County list we ran).
L is for Lucky ’13 – It’s been my favorite number as long as I can remember, and I’d have to imagine this season’s champions can’t be terribly superstitious about it anymore. To wrap things up, hail to the 2013 champs, in alphabetic order: the Bergen Catholic boys (Big North United Division), Glen Rock boys (NJIC Colonial, Bergen County overall, North 1A, Group 2), Hackensack boys (Big North Freedom, Bergen Groups 3-4, North 1A, Group 4), Hawthorne boys (North 1B, Group 2), Holy Angels girls (Big North United, North Group 2), Lyndhurst boys (NJIC Meadowlands, North 1A, Group 1), Mahwah girls (Big North Patriot), New Milford boys (NJIC Patriot), Northern Highlands girls (North Group 3), Paramus Catholic girls (Bergen County), Pascack Valley boys (North 1A, Group 3), Passaic Tech boys (North 1B, Group 4), Pompton Lakes boys (Passaic County, North 1B, Group 1), Ridgewood girls (Big North Freedom, North Group 4), Wayne Hills girls (Passaic County), West Milford boys (North 1B, Group 3), Westwood boys (Big North Patriot)… as soon as someone can e-mail us the Big North’s Liberty, Independence, National and American division winners, we’ll add them to this list, too.
FINALLY – For all the pitfalls of selecting our All-North Jersey honorees, I did have fun with the process. And it was nice to come in with some experience, having helped pick WGHT All-Area and Ridgewood News All-Suburban teams for other sports in the past. Most importantly, these aren’t be-all, end-all lists. They’re just what I came up with this time around from doing what I love to do: watching bowling. I plan to keep doing so as long as I’m able, so if I omitted a name of someone worthy of a mention – tell them to keep bowling. I’d be happy to tell their stories the next time Gutterball Greg rolls around…