Penn Hills bowling teams have youth to spare

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, December 8, 2017 | 11:54 PM

The Penn Hills bowling program will return only one regional qualifier from last season as the Indians look to develop young talent.

Senior Christina Marra, who has made three straight regional appearances, finished in 37th place with a three-game total of 514 at the WPIBL Singles Championships last season.

However, the girls team will look to replace Maya Logan, who made two regional appearances and finished 42nd with a three-game total of 511 at WPIBLs last season.

This season, the girls lineup will include a pair of freshmen — Taylor Parco and Ashley Hepler — as well as sophomore Audrey Grainy and junior Makayla Delo.

“(Marra) is the cornerstone for the team. We are looking for her to be the leader and for her to set the foundation for the next couple years with what we have coming up. We have some solid and good bowlers coming up,” girls coach Nancy Lindsay said.

Even with only five bowlers, Lindsay believes the girls team has a chance to qualify for the team and individual postseasons.

“They are very coachable and very easy to work with for being a small team. They seem to be working hard together, and they are responding to coaching well,” Lindsay said.

“I think they are all capable, but we just have to get them all fine-tuned and get their averages up.”

If the Indians have aspirations of qualifying for the WPIBL team tournament, Lindsay believes it will boil down to making sure her bowlers pick up their spares.

“It's all about practicing the spares. It's the key to the game because if you lose a game by one or two pins it's because someone somewhere along the line didn't pick up a spare,” Lindsay said.

While the girls team has a young team with bowling experience, the boys team is young and inexperienced.

The boys lose Shawn Edgar, who made his first regional appearance in his senior season. Last season, Edgar finished in 50th place after posting a three-game total of 501 at the WPIBLs.

The Indians will look to replace Edgar with a trio of sophomores: A.J. Collins, Ryland Amato and Noah Houghtelin.

“You have to go back to basics. I've had kids in the past where they were in bowling leagues for years so we would just work on improving their skills whereas we are working on getting these kids skills period,” boys coach Mark Diehm said.

Diehm believes the boys team will gain valuable experience with the new East section that includes Plum, Franklin Regional, Woodland Hills, Propel Braddock and Redeemer Lutheran.

“I'm excited for my kids to see bowlers like the teams from Plum and Franklin Regional that have a lot of depth so they can see what hard work that they put into it equals out to be,” Diehm said.

“These kids put so much time into their game, and that's why they are as good as they are. I'm excited for them to see what practice and leagues can do if they want to pick up the game.”

The Indians got a firsthand look at Plum on Dec. 13 at Nesbit's Lanes, and results were too late for this edition.

Andrew John is a freelance writer.

Tags: Penn Hills