A-K Valley bowling preview: Kiski Area boys hope to draw from experience

By: HSSN Staff
Sunday, December 16, 2018 | 7:09 PM

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The postseason has a knack of exposing flaws.

An up-and-coming Kiski Area boys bowling team confidently went into Lower Burrell’s Wildlife Lanes last February for the 2018 Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Bowling League championships and experienced a first.

With 20-plus lanes of high school bowlers competing for a championship, the sounds of pins exploding to the left and right and the sudden cheers, high-fives and roars from the crowd around them, Kiski Area struggled to adapt.

“They were shocked last year because they never bowled in an atmosphere like that,” Kiski Area bowling coach George Belles said. “They were shellshocked at the very least.”

Sports always seem to find a way of keeping even the most prominent athletes humble, and Kiski Area was no exception. The Cavaliers stepped into a situation every budding program with lofty goals goes through in order to make progress.

Kiski Area didn’t survive past the first round of the tournament, and the unflattering finish left a promising season unfulfilled, but the experience of competing in a championship environment is something that can’t be quantified.

“It put a fire in all of them, and they feel like they need to redeem themselves,” Belles said. “They’re more focused and more driven now in being a team. In my opinion, we have to earn it.”

Most of last year’s team is back, including three bowlers who competed on a national level during the offseason.

Senior Justin Chiltco, junior Chase McDermott and sophomore Joey Belles were at the 2018 Junior Gold championships in Dallas over the summer and fared well.

“That tremendously helped our boys team with that little bit of experience,” Belles said.

McDermott will co-anchor the fifth spot in the order with fellow junior and 2018 WPIBL boys MVP, Billy Perroz. The two standouts will flip between the No. 5 and No. 2 spots in the lineup. Joey Belles will bowl fourth and Chiltco third. Joe Collini will bowl in the No. 1 spot, and Jackson Carroll is expected to push for a starting spot.

The Kiski Area girls team will lead off with junior Ashley Debich, and for the first time during the Belles tenure, the Cavaliers will be anchored by a freshman in Kara Fouse.

“(Fouse is) very competitive and has that drive,” Belles said. “I don’t think that she feels the pressure as much as some of the other girls do. I think she’s gonna make a really good leader on that team.”

The WPIBL Northeast Conference consists of Alle-Kiski Valley teams. The Burrell girls are the early favorite to finish atop the Northeast Conference.

With seniors Carlee Hummel and Brittany McDade, junior Ashlee Smith and sophomore Shayla Calvert returning to a team that finished runner-up to Butler at the 2018 WPIBL team championships last February, Burrell has unfinished business.

A dark horse in the Northeast Conference boys division could be St. Joseph. The Spartans finished third in the standings last season.

St. Joseph returns two starters from last season in juniors Bowen Lambermont and Joseph Godinez. Lambermont (230) and Godinez (186) will bowl in the anchor and No. 4 spots. Jacob Gigler (135) will bowl in the leadoff spot.

Sophomore Sean LeMay will flip-flop from the No. 2 and No. 3 spots. Spartans coach Michael Prater said the final open spot in the lineup will be filled by a junior varsity bowler.

“I got three or four guys competing for that (final) spot,” he said. “You can see some of them want it and some of them don’t want to lose the comfort of junior varsity.”

Apollo-Ridge junior Kristin Womeldorf is a one-girl team. She’s the lone bowler on the Vikings girls team and leads the conference in total pins (559) and average (186) after the first week of the regular season. First-year coach George Galo has left the door open for any bowlers who might want to join the team. The Vikings boys team picked up a nice win over Freeport to start the season and will be looking to build on that.

“They don’t have to be good, that’s what the coaches are for,” Galo said. “It’s a very young team. We have one senior (on the boy’s team) and the other kids are ninth- and 10th-graders.”

William Whalen is a freelance writer.

Tags: Burrell, Freeport, Kiski School, Plum, St. Joseph