The elite of youth tenpin bowling from across Australia and Singapore converged on Point Cook’s Wyncity Entertainment Centre at the weekend to battle it out for the National Youth Cup.
The trophy for the male section stayed on home soil after Victorian Lachlan Merchant came away with the spoils with a near flawless matchplay finals, but the female title is heading to Singapore after Xin Yi Oh fought back from a struggling finals start to take out the title.
The qualifying rounds brought together 105 bowlers from the two nations.
Perfect games of 300 were sent down by Nick Flannery and Michael Murray, while Amabel Chua was agonisingly one pin short in on e game, scoring 299.
The top 14 males in a field of 62 qualified for the finals; they included Jayden Leming, who had the best average of 227.0, and Jake Otago, who squeezed into 14th place with an average of 209.9.
The top 10 females from a field of 43 earned their passage, with Nicola McColl the favourite heading into the finals, having averaged 205.3 in qualifying.
Shannon Gallagher was the last qualifier with an average of 192.6 – just 0.1 ahead of Hiok Heng Fiona Yew.
In the men’s matchplay finals, Merchant won 12 of his 13 matches and averaged a tournament- high 229.0 to be a deserving winner. It was Merchant’s first major tournament win, beating Jayden Panella (224.7) and top qualifier Leming (219.9).
Leming was the form player having come off a bronze medal with the Australian team on a recent trip to Abu Dhabi, but Merchant stamped himself as one to watch in future.
In the women’s matchplay finals, Xin Yi Oh managed to steal the title after losing four of her first five finals games. Yi Oh was on fire late with her last five scores of 214, 209, 233, 246 and 221 bumping up her average to 209.9.
She won narrowly from Carly Giordmaina (206.5) and top qualifier McColl (203.6), but the action at Wyncity is not over.
The national Youth Teams Challenge is taking over the lanes today and tomorrow. Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, the ACT, Queensland and Western Australia will compete, while the Singapore Sports School will add an international flavour.
