BATON ROUGE - Women’s college bowling returns to Baton Rouge this weekend at All Star Lanes as Southern hosts a three-day college event.

Joining the Jaguars will be the No. 5 team in the country, Louisiana Tech, No. 14 Sam Houston and UAB, Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Florida A&M, Grambling, Jackson State, Prairie View and Texas Southern. 

Action begins with five sets of five Baker matches on Friday at 9:15 a.m. with five five-place score games Saturday at 9 a.m. The event concludes with three rounds of best of seven Baker matches in a bracket format starting at 7:45 a.m.

Southern is coming off a good finish in the final SWAC round up finishing fourth in the regular season standings. Included in those wins was a four-pin win over champ, Jackson State.

Also, Maria Molina Diaz made the Columbian Junior National Team and will be competing this summer for her home country. She is one of four freshmen on the team this year.

HIGH SCHOOL STUNNER

Last Monday in the New Orleans area, the big match was supposed to be Shaw and Patrick Taylor and could Patrick Taylor stop Shaw’s 34 match win streak. But that proved to be not as important as what was happening at Colonial Lanes between eight-time state champ Brother Martin and Hahnville.

Hahnville, a fourth-year program yet to make the playoffs, pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the New Orleans region, with a 14-13 rallying downing of the Crusaders. Hahnville rolled a total of 3,577, over 400 pins above their previous best. Hahnville shot a six-player score of 1,238 to rally from 11-5 to win.

Colston Blanchard shot 696 to lead Hahnville with Wyatt Barnes rolling 672. Brother Martin had numbers as well with Jeremiah Cordero shooting 740 and Tyler Nunes 728.

It’s the on any given day story in high school bowling. In that other match, Shaw won 15-12 and later in the week extended the streak to 36 matches.

Back here in Baton Rouge, East Ascension on Monday rolled a 1,266 game and a 3,525 series to highlight the week. The two 5A districts in Baton Rouge are as opposite through three weeks as they can be. One doesn’t have a team above .500 entering the week, the other has East Ascension, Denham Springs, St. Amant and Dutchtown all at 4-0 and Prairieville 3-1.

Kind of crazy. 

St. Michael (3-1), Glen Oaks (4-1), Episcopal (4-0) and French Settlement are the other teams doing well in the Division II districts.

On the girls’ side, Dutchtown is 3-0 with St. Amant, Denham Springs and Saint Joseph’s Academy all at 3-1.

Some great scores this past week as Sam Battaglia of Prairieville posted 257-705, Carson Childers of French Settlement rolled 268-686 and Chase Cagnolatti of St. Amant put together sets of 685 and 682 with a 269 high game.

The girls saw both Ava Doucet of SJA and Annie Laurence of Denham Springs going double 600s on the week. Doucet for the second time in three weeks posted a 699 to go with a 632, while Laurence rolled strong sets of 628 and 640. Parker Blanchard for St. Michael also doubled for the coed team with a 619-604.

Also a salute to Molly Milligan for a 246 game for SJA.

More high school bowling this week through Thursday at the two local centers before a week off in Baton Rouge for the Mardi Gras break.

We’ll have more next Monday including Southern results, women’s state and high school as always.

Until then, good luck and good bowling, 

                                                    Kent Lowe