Youngstown State bowlers Hope Bunk and Lyndsay Ennis have each qualified for match play at the 2022 Teen Masters Bowling Championships. This is the 25th annual running of the tournament, which is being held at Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, Mich., near Detroit.
Bunk, an incoming freshman from Billings, Mont., leads the field of 74 bowlers, and Ennis, a sophomore from Conway, S.C., is sixth in the standings through 24 games of qualifying.
Bunk averaged 201.33 in qualifying and totaled 4,832 pins over her 24 games. That total is 10 pins better than second-place Rachel Moore and 15 pins higher than third-place Abbie Leiendecker, and the fourth-place bowler is 105 pins behind Bunk. Ennis averaged 194.04 with a total of 4,657 pins over 24 games.
Match play begins Friday at noon, and all 12 qualifiers who made the cut will bowl 12 games over two sessions to determine the tournament champion. Bowlers who win each head-to-head game receive 30 bonus pins to add to their scratch total, and the athlete with the highest grand total of scratch pins plus bonus pins will claim the title.
Bowling in six-game blocks over the first three days of qualifying, Bunk started with a set of 1,135 on Monday before posting a 1,237 and 1,217 over the next two days. Ennis, meanwhile, had sets of 1,125 and 1,138 to start before firing a 1,252 on the third day to make the cut of the top 19 bowlers. In the final session of qualifying on Thursday, Bunk posted her best set of the week with a 1,243, and Ennis rolled a 1,142 to stay in the top 12 for match play.
Ennis has been a strong performer at Teen Masters in each of the last four summers. Last season she finished fourth, and she was 13th in 2020 and 10th in 2019. Last month at the Junior Gold Championships, Ennis qualified for match play in 15th place and finished in a tie for ninth.
Bowlers at the Teen Masters Bowling Championships are restricted to using only one ball, a PBA SKILL Ball, throughout the week. There is also a dual pattern set up on pairs of lanes with a long pattern on one lane and a short pattern on the other.
Updates during Friday's competition will be posted at
https://www.teenmasterschampionships.com/standings