The Middletown Girls Varsity Bowling competed at the end-of-season Sectionals Tournament on Thursday at Crossgate Lanes in Blue Ash. The format is 3 regular games, lunch break, then 6 Bakers. Total pinfall is used to determine the top 7 teams, and top 7 individuals not on those teams, that will move on to the District Championship next week.

The team bowled better than they have in other tournaments this year, especially since the oil pattern was designed to make you work hard for good scores throughout the day. For the regular season, the team averaged 547 per game, but at Sectionals, they shot regular games of 646, 655, and 603! Spare shooting has been the dagger for the girls all season, and is probably one of the reasons why they unfortunately did not make the cut to move on.

Leading the girls by scores was Junior Emma Kruse, starting out with a 120, but she came firing back to post her best personal game ever with an awesome 228, and then had a 159, to finish with a 507 series! Fantastic job Emma! Sophomore Kaitlyn Kincer cranked out a great first game of 174, had 4 splits in game 2 to finish with a 100, and then bounced back with a good game of 152, for a 426 total! Her 174 was her highest game of the year! Senior Harley Bailey threw a 133, 129, and a 100! Sophomore Braelyn Bates posted games of 120, 129, and 104, and Freshman Allison Pritchard (who just switched over to 2-hander) rolled a 99, 69, and an 88.

With the 1st 2 games being well over their season average, the girls were in contention with only being out of the cut by 41 after game #1, then 68 after game #2, but then the other teams stepped it up and pushed the Middies down to 231 from the cut line.

Time was of the essence and the girls had to really come together over the next 6 Baker games if they wanted to move on as a team. The girls started off slow with a 117, but came storming back with games of 140, 132, 138, 147, and the last game of 155! But unfortunately, it just wasn't enough, even though they averaged 138.1 with a season average of only 108!

However, when the results were announced, we did receive some great news when it was announced that our Junior Emma Kruse will be advancing to the District Championships as an individual next week at Beaver-Vu Lanes in Beavercreek! Congrats Emma!

For the rest of the team, the season is officially over. We want to wish Senior Harley Bailey the best of luck in everything she does after graduation! For all others, we hope that you enjoyed bowling this season, because we would love to have you back to make an even better 2026-27 season!

GO MIDDIES!