BATON ROUGE - The second week of prep bowling in the Baton Rouge area was another three-day week after last Monday’s matches were postponed after the cold weather issues.

Now we hope to get a full four-day week of prep bowling in Baton Rouge and Gonzales as the season really begins to get going. 

But there were some solid moments last week with eight boys’ teams and three girls’ teams undefeated after the first two weeks in the Baton Rouge and Gonzales districts.

In District 4-5A, Catholic is 1-0 after not having a match last week. In District 5-5A, it is already going to be quite run there as Denham Springs and Dutchtown are 3-0 and East Ascension and St. Amant are both 2-0. The only undefeated in the 4A District is St. Michael at 2-0, while in the 3A and below district Episcopal, without a match last week, remains 2-0, with another newcomer, French Settlement, and U-High also at 2-0. Madison Prep stands 1-0.

In the Gonzales Girls District, Dutchtown is 3-0 with St. Amant at 2-0, while in the Baton Rouge/Livingston District, Denham Springs is 2-0.

Speaking of early success for French Settlement, how about Carson Childers who is 6-0 individually in matches and rolled a 247 and a week high of 693. Dutchtown’s Justin Ohler had 270 and 691. While Anthony Authement of EA posted 249-679 with Matthew Martin throwing in a 247 game. Congrats to Kaden Tran of Baton Rouge High with another high game of 279 that led to a 649 set.

EA’s boys’ team this week had games of 1,202 and 1,251 (1,200 being the par score for a six-player average of 200) with a 3,513 team series.

Amelia Smith of EA had the best game for the girls with a 202.

We got this note from New Orleans that last week Patrick Taylor posted a three-game set of 3,655 (203 average) in a match.

They were scheduled to meet Archbishop Shaw, the defending Division II champs in 2025, on Monday and Shaw was putting a 34-match win streak on the line. Their last loss was in the 2023 state playoffs. That was the last year of the single boys championship bracket. Shaw is undefeated since the two divisions for the playoffs kicked in, putting Shaw in the Class 4A and below bracket.

Remember match action takes place this week Monday through Thursday at All Star Lanes in Baton Rouge. Matches are also set for Premier in Gonzales Monday through Wednesday, but there may be some makeups on Thursday because there are lanes available.  

PBA Tour Starts On CW In 20 Days

There was a lot of discussion in the bowling industry over the recent announcement that Kimberly Pressler is not being retained as the sideline reporter for the new series of PBA Tournament broadcasts on The CW. Pressler put out a statement on her social media that was extremely classy and her work with the bowlers in all the big events on ESPN and later FOX Sports was impressive.

It was announced earlier that Rick Allen of The CW would be the new play-by-play voice of the tour and it appears for the 10 CW events that there will be a new analyst in the chair next to Allen.

Sunday, Jeff Richgels of 11thFrame.com wrote that a bowling industry source told him that The CW would be going with Kyle Sherman as color analyst, but a deal has not been announced.

Sherman owns two PBA titles, but more importantly Sherman is heavily involved in social media circles which I’m sure was a factor in him being considered for the job, with a need for the tour to grab the younger demographics.

We’ll see where this goes from here. And, we’ll be back next Monday with more high school scores and bowling news.

Until then, good luck and good bowling,

                              Kent Lowe