Vernon Hills makes final dozen

Vernon Hills' boys bowling team survived the first day and made the cut by 12 pins.

The Cougars are among the top 12 teams remaining in the boys bowling state tournament at St. Claire Lanes in downstate O'Fallon.

Lockport (6,582), Lake Park (6,529) and Harrisburg (6,480) are the top three teams leading the way after 6 games on Friday out of 24 reaching the finals. There will be 6 more games rolled today for the remaining top 12 teams and individuals.

The Cougars (5,965) didn't have one of their best days but managed to move forward to day two with the 12th-best score.

"I guess you can call it happy-go-lucky," said Vernon Hills coach Ron Long, whose team took 12th last year and had one of the highest sectional scores last week. "I'm not surprised, but I thought we would do a lot better. Our expectations are very high for this team. Top five is our goal and we still believe it's possible."

Vernon Hills opened up with a respectable 3,054 for the first three games and tailed off a bit with a 2,911.

Brandon Knopoff led the Cougars with a 6-game total 1,261 and a high game of 246. Other scores came from Aaron Rose (1,237), Chris Weaver (1,213), Alex Wong (1,195), Erik Hencier (749, 4 games), Nicholas Garpow (169) and Shaefer Shepard (141).

Deerfield, making its first trip, didn't the make the cut as team and settled for 17th place (5,803).

However the Warriors got a couple of individuals to bowl on Saturday. Ethan Jacobson (1,286) and Jacob Elbaum (1,249).each advanced. Elbaum picked up the 7-10 split in game two and started out throwing 8 strikes in Game 5 for a 268.

"We had two guys who worked hard," Deerfield coach Peter Cullen said. "There were a lot of great bowlers out there. I thought our guys did well with the dry lanes."

Paul Ritt of Stevenson qualified with a 6-game total 1,275 and broke 200 in five of the six games. Ritt also rolled a couple games of 236.

Lake Zurich's Austin Wells missed reaching the second day by throwing a 1,206 and finished in 77th place.