The Saginaw Heritage varsity boys bowling team won the 2013 Pinconning Invitational Tournament held Sunday at Bay Lanes in Bay City. The 16-team tournament consisted of a qualifying round of 6 Baker games and three peterson games (5-man team games), then a head-to-head match play bracket to the championship. Heritage had a 3,504 for third place in the qualifying round, plus
Baker games of 166, 149, 184, 188, 189, 175; Peterson games of 845, 790 and 815
High games were Tyler Scott (211), Travis Taylor (188, 198), Morris Pruitt (188), Brandon Southworth (173).
In the round of 12: Heritage defeated Bay City Western JV, 2-0 (187-130, 163-157). In the Round of 6, Heritage defeated Bay City Western Varsity, 2-1 (168-160, 146-155, 166-157). In the championship match: Heritage defeated Hartland, 2-0 (198-172, 198-160).
“Pinconning had the Middle Road Oil Pattern on the lanes and it was difficult to score throughout the tournament,” said Heritage coach Peter Ryan. “We just tried to stay out of trouble and make spares all day, but that proved very difficult to do. The scores were relatively low across the board, so we just kept grinding out games and ended up with the third seed following the qualifying round. “The top two seeds were defeated in the match play rounds and we survived to move up to the No. 1 seed in the stepladder finals. That put us in the championship match where we bowled our best two baker games of the day, two 198 games to win the tournament. It was one of those days where we weren’t necessarily at our best, but we just kept grinding through the tough conditions and made quality shots when we needed them. In the end, we bowled our best when it counted and found a way to win. I’m really proud of the team for keeping their focus and heads up during a difficult and long day on the lanes.”
The Heritage bowlers that participated in the tournament Tyler Scott, Morris Pruitt, Travis Taylor, Adam Clauss, Robert Henne, Brandon Southworth and Shane Carlson.