Along with all other winter sports, the bowling season has concluded. The bowling team performed well this entire season and finished the newly formatted state tournament. This new format used head to head matchups based on the seeding, in which each group was based on their school’s average score from their top 4 bowlers in each regular season game. Oratory Prep was in Central Jersey, Group 1 for the State Tournament. Based on the regular season, The Oratory Prep Bowling Team got the 7th seed in their group giving them a first round bye. In the second round of the state tournament, Oratory played the 2nd seed, McNair. Since McNair was the higher seed, Oratory Prep had to travel to McNair’s home bowling alley at Hudson Lanes, in Jersey City. In this new format, it was the best of 3 games meaning whichever team won 2 games first, would win the match and move on in the tournament. Although the Rams fought hard in two very good matches, they lost 2-0 to McNair.
Since the chance of playing for a state championship was on the line, the Rams tried their hardest to obtain a victory. Although they lost, they still finished off the season with some very impressive results. Ryan Grapkoski and Keegan Murphy achieved a personal best of 180 pins in the second match. Oratory was winning in the last frame with 2 bowlers to go on each team in the second match, but unfortunately the lead slipped away. In this game, the Rams had one of their best scores with a 746. Although the bowling season has come to an end, big improvements have been made since last year and the OP bowling team certainly has a bright future.
