Lee Bowlers Win County Title
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- The Lee High bowling team defeated Drury, 4-1, on Friday to win the Berkshire County Bowling Conference Championship at Greylock Bowl and Golf.
The quintet of Samantha Farina, Zach Wilson, Devyn Olds, Nick Roy and J.T. Sorrentino came back after losing the first match to take four straight Baker Format matches in the final round of the five-team tournament.
"We just said a couple of words to regroup," Lee coach Matt Fillio said.
"We knew we just had to keep bowling, keep getting our strikes. Our guys were really fired up."
Drury finished the regular season and two weeks of positional round play as the league's top seed, but Lee was right on the Blue Devils' heels. Fillio said Friday's championship final could have gone either way.
"We won a couple [of matches] by 20, but it was close right to the last box," he said. "They're a really good team. They beat us a couple of times head to head.
"We knew we just had to keep bowling, keep getting our strikes."
Lee advanced to the finals with a 4-0 win over Taconic in the best-of-seven semi-final.
The defending champion Blue Devils had a tougher road, being pushed to seven games by St. Joseph in the semis.
Drury trailed 2-1 against the Crusaders but took the next two before St. Joe's Jordan Kinnas got a turkey in the 10th frame to wrap up a 187-142 win to kee St. Joe alive.
In the most dramatic match of the day, Kayla Field and Zach Yeaton rolled back-to-back strikes in the fourth and fifth frames to help Drury take a 103-83 lead through six. Austin Davine and Nickolas Johnson picked up spares in the seventh and eighth to maintain the advantage, and Yeaton went spare-strike in the 10th to finish a 179-150 win.
The fifth team competing on Friday, Pittsfield, was short one bowler, forcing the Generals to leave the first and fifth frames of each match open. Still, the Generals managed to push St. Joe to a fifth match in their play-in to see who would face Drury in the semi-finals.
All five teams competing on Friday are eligible to compete in next Saturday's state high school championship in Chicopee.