By Michael Wojtychiw

Ask pretty much any bowler and the majority of them will tell you one of their biggest dreams is to bowl a 300 game.

To be able to do it, however, everything needs to go right, from a player’s initial movement to how the ball curves as it goes down the lane to how and where the ball hits the pins.

That’s exactly what Lane standout sophomore Lucas Drisdel did in the final game of the Chicago Public League Boys Bowling City Championships at Waveland Bowl this past weekend.

“I’ve done it in practice before,” he said. “After I had the first six strikes in a row, I started to think that it could be something. But I was only halfway through the game, but once I got to eight and nine, I’d been to that level a couple times but never been able to finish. I started to think ‘Maybe this is the one time I’ll get it.’

“So then I actually felt way less nervous than I had previously when I was going into the tenth frame. After each shot, it was like I was nervous, but when I shot it, I had the feeling like there was nobody behind me.”

After not bowling in the Champions’ first three games in the morning, Drisdel stepped up in the afternoon session, putting up a three-game total of 805, racking up scores of 247, 258 and 300. He was just one of seven team members that helped the squad win its second straight city title and third in four years.

“It feels amazing to have helped the team, it feels even better to be the one that helped us pull together at the end because I had seen how we were doing in the morning and knew I could help make that shift,” Drisdel said.

“What we’ve been doing the past couple of years is we only accept freshmen into our program, we don’t accept kids from any other year, because the way I look at it is I don’t need them to be good the first two years, I don’t need them to be good immediately,” Lane coach Justin Perez said. “Sometimes I get the rare kids that put in the work and are amazing right away, but players like Hudson and David have been in the program for four years. They didn’t come in knowing much about bowling, they learned, did the work all four years and it’s going to be sad to lose them. But what’s great is the freshmen see the standard we have and they know this is what expected and can see that if I put in the work, I can get to the next level.

“It was fantastic seeing Lucas’ success. Last year I was fortunate to see Brian Ray do it, this year with Lucas. Seeing how much work he’s put in and how much work he continues to put in, in my opinion, he’s going to end up as the best CPS bowler ever.”

The Champions finished with a six-game total of 6,098 pins, a mere 171 pins ahead of Taft. It was the second year in a row that the Champions had edged out the Eagles, who finished with a total of 5.927 pins. Morgan Park finished third with 5.312 pins.

For Lane to repeat, it wasn’t an easy feat, especially with the target on its back of not only being the reigning champions, but also being the state’s top-ranked team, according to some state boys bowling rankings.

One thing that its coach saw has been the improvement of his entire roster, not just a couple of bowlers. A big part in that has been the dedication of the team members, even going to national tournaments in the summer. Lane traveled to the U.S. High School Bowling National Championship in Fort Wayne, a competition made up of state qualifiers from teams all across the nation.

Lane came in sixth place as a team at the national tournament, with Drisdel finishing fourth individually.

“When we went over there, we had an idea of what to expect, but it was a completely amazing experience,” Perez said. “We’re going to continue doing it every year, but seeing that environment helped us gain a lot of confidence. After our finish at state, we knew we were a very good team and knew that Illinois teams tend to do very well at Nationals.

“That tournament, we kept moving up and up. What we saw too is a couple of our guys who didn’t get a chance to bowl at state came into Nationals and were fantastic. To have some of our guys who may not have gotten a lot of opportunities during the year, to get that exposure and opportunity at something like Nationals, it was huge for them and the team.”

Taft’s Tyler Paulus came in as the league’s defending champion, having won last year’s title with a total of 1,344 pins. The junior bested that total, knocking down 1,396 pins to hold off Lane’s Hudson Finn, who took runner-up honors with a 1,305 total. IN five of his six games, Paulus went for a score of 230 or better.

This being Paulus’ third trip to the city championships, and last year’s run to the individual title, helped Paulus coming into this year’s championships.

“As a team, we wanted to come out today and win, but for me, I put pressure on myself to lead the team here and lead them to victory, which we failed to do, but that’s ok,” he said. “I had my team backing me up and that helped me really keep calm.

“Surrounding myself with better bowlers, I feel like I thrive in pressure, so with the more pressure, the better I tend to bowl. I feel like there’s more to gain when you compete with really good competition.”

Like the Lane squad, Paulus participated not only in the same national competition, where he finished 95th overall, but also other offseason competitions.

The experience in those tournaments, as well as his first two years as a high school bowler, has really helped his confidence, as well as his bowling skills.

“I feel like playing in those tournaments and other big matches like that has really helped me become a better leader,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun to go to events like those and see myself improve.”

Payton’s McGown rolls 300

Drisdel wasn’t the only CPL bowler to roll a 300 this season.

Payton junior Rowen McGown also had the distinction of rolling a perfect game earlier this season, this time at the Crosstown Invitational in December. Also like Drisdel, the Grizzlies’ bowler saved his best for last, as he rolled his 300 in the sixth game of the day, catapulting him to the individual title at the invitational.

“For me, when I’m throwing it right, throwing a lot of strikes in a row, I know I don’t have to change anything,” he said. “I just have to tune everything out.

“Accomplishing something like that proves to me that it’s something I can actually do. I’ve always had doubts, so when I threw the last shot, it was less happiness and more relief.”

Like many high school bowlers, McGown didn’t have a ton of bowling experience coming into high school, having started just before coming into high school in the Waveland Bowl league.

That experience, however, as well as constant repetition with his team, helped him fall in love with the game and continue to improve.

Bowling a 300 is most bowlers’ dream, but not one he definitely saw coming.

“I never saw it coming,” he said. Even in practice, the most I had bowled is 10 in a row, and that doesn’t happen often.

“I’ve seen myself improve, but not to that level.”

Photos by Joey Gelman and Michael Wojtychiw/OSA