Ritt's a hit downstate

Paul Ritt of Stevenson got all the elements of his game working at the right time on the way to a 13th-place finish in the boys bowling state tournament on Saturday at St. Clair Lanes in downstate O'Fallon.

"I guess I can call myself the underdog as a sophomore," Ritt said. "I've progressed a lot from last year. What I thought I did was excellent, and I gave it my best shot out there. I'm still kind of in shock."

Ritt finished as the top-placing boys bowler in school history, edging Eric Woeckel's 21st-place effort from a couple of years ago.

"It's all pretty amazing," said Ritt, who rolled 11 of 12 games over 200. "It was shocking not going anywhere when I was a freshman."

Ritt opened up Saturday with a career-best 735 series, throwing games of 256, 223 and 256. He followed up games of 244, 165 and 225 for a 634 series and had a 12-game total of 2,644 (220 average).

Cody Clayton of Edwardsville was the top bowler (2,783; 231 average) and won by 8 pins over Dan Lemiesz of Machesney Park Harlem.

Vernon Hills started the day in 12th place in the team race and ended in 11th, rolling 11,872 pins. The Cougars shot 2,883 in the morning and 3,024 for the afternoon.

"We we're able to move up a spot," Vernon Hills coach Ron Long said. "We installed a lot of our other bowlers. We're still a young team, and we'll have a lot of experienced bowlers coming back next year."

Chris Weaver, a senior, led the Cougars by finishing in 20th place. Weaver (2,599) rolled a 688 and 698 over the 6 games on Saturday and a high game of 257. Others contributors were Aaron Rose (2,236), Brandon Knopoff (1,983), Alex Wong (1,750), Erik Hencier (1,508), Nicholas Garpow (788), Mason Madej (525) and Shaefer Shepard (483).

Lake Park won the state championship with 13,129 pins, Lockport (12,895) took second and Harrisburg (12,514) picked up third place.

Deerfield's Jacob Elbaum (2,461) finished 47th and Ethan Jacobson (2,292) was 69th.