MISTY LANE QUINTET WINS STATE BOWLING TITLE

By SUE RIEDER
sports@beeherald.com

Five bowlers who bowl regularly at Misty Lanes in Grand Junction, were recently notified that their team had won the Booster Division Championship at the 2014 Iowa State USBC Open Championships. The five members of the team are Jeremy Richards, Phillip Naylor, Bret Anderson, Charles Gunn, and Rod Robbins.  Naylor owns Naylor Service and Sales, an outdoor equipment business in Perry that sponsors the team.

This tournament has been held annually for 97 years and is different from most as it is held over a period of 17 weeks in designated bowling alleys in Iowa. This year’s tournament was held in Burlington and Mount Pleasant. Teams from all over the state applied and were assigned a certain weekend and time to compete. On those weekends, different groups were scheduled from 8:00 a.m. until late in the evening in team, doubles, and singles competitions. Naylor’s team was in the Booster Division because not all of their members carried a high enough average to be in the open division.  Even though the team felt good about their performance, they did not know that they had won until all the teams had finished. “We were pretty surprised when we were notified. We just all hit on the same day” said Jeremy Richards of Grand Junction.

Richards led the team with a three game scratch series of 758. Other series scores were Naylor 632, Anderson 582, Robbins 576, and Gunn 508 for a total team scratch score of 3056. Teams in the Booster Division are allowed to add pins onto their score (handicap). The team’s total with the handicap was 3331, eleven pins off of the state record of 3342 that was recorded by Graham Tire of Storm Lake in 2006. They beat the second place team Whatever from Postville by 47 pins. The other teams in the top five of the Booster Division were Louie’s Lakeside Bistro from Ottumwa with 3283, Encore Auto from Maquoketa with 3246, and Berry Lanes, Inc. from Cedar Rapids with 3240. Some of the Greene County group may have bowled higher games previously, and some may have had better series before, but winning was difficult because all five bowlers had to do well on three games, on the same day, and during the specific time period that the team had been assigned.

The team was awarded a team plaque which they plan to hang on the wall at Misty Lanes which is “the house where they bowl”. They also got smaller individual awards and $1200 which they will split between the five players. “It’s kind of cool to think that five guys who bowl at a six-lane bowling alley could compete with these teams from all over the state,” said Naylor a 30 year veteran of the sport.
The entry forms are already online for next year’s tournament that will be held in Waterloo on weekends from February 7 through May 10. It’s likely that Naylor’s crew is already checking their calendars to find a good weekend to go and defend their title.