Humboldt is going to nationals for bowling after Dylan Manderscheid, who bowls at Kemway Lanes in Humboldt, lead his team of five mixed bowlers to the gold medal at the 2015 five-pin Youth Bowling Challenge held in Saskatoon on Dec. 6. He will represent Team Saskatchewan at the national championship in Winnipeg in March.
The team consisted of five bowlers, all from Humboldt, who represented the North Sask Zone, which in addition to Humboldt included Melfort and Nipawin, for bowlers 13-18 years old.
The bowlers included Sara Thiemann, who qualified for the national championship last year but missed out on a second consecutive trip this year in a bowl off to Dakota Mutrie from Esterhazy, after both girls finished the tournament in a tie for third.
To qualify for nationals, players were required to finish in the top three of each individual category.
The rest of the team consisted of Michael Kimmen, Payton Pray, Logan Therres and coach Leigh Ann Biehn.
This is the third consecutive time that Humboldt has sent a bowler to nationals in the team event.
Zackary Biehn represented Team Saskatchewan two years ago in Hamilton while Thiemann traveled to Edmonton for last year’s event.
Coach Leigh Ann Biehn believes that the success Humboldt has been experiencing the last few years proves that Humboldt’s bowling program is very strong and still improving, something that they’ve been building towards for many years.
It’s been a long road, she said.
“Looking at Dylan and Sara, they started (bowling) when they were 3,4,5 years old so they’ve been bowling for 15, 16 years, we’ve seen them develop over the years,” Biehn said.
Each member of the team bowls five games with total pin fall counting towards each bowlers score.
The mixed team bowled very well over the course of the five rounds, out scoring the next closest team by 88 pins, 4993-4905, marking the first time the North Sask Team has won the mixed gold medal.
Manderscheid won the boys event with a five round total of 1308, 15 pins more than second place and Thiemann finished with a score of 1141, while Theimann lost the bowl off with Mutrie, 247-220.
This marks the second time that Manderscheid is going to the national championship after qualifying in 2014 in the singles category as a junior. Manderscheid made the move to senior this year, making his victory even more “impressive”.
Manderscheid joins a small club who can say they competed for a national championship and an even smaller one that can say they have done it twice, “it feels really awesome,” he said.
Manderscheid said that the first time he went to nationals he was very nervous the first day.
“I thought that I wasn’t going to do so well because you’re from a small town. I practiced but it almost seemed like the people that were there practiced way more than what I did,” he said.
After spending the first day playing, where he admits he didn’t do as well as he would have liked, and watching, Manderscheid was able to settle down the second day, believing that his opponents were on a level playing field.
Manderscheid began beating rivals and by the end of the tournament he had beaten everybody at least one time and ended up with the silver medal as the second best junior aged bowler in Canada.
Gaining valuable experience in Winnipeg in 2014 is going to benefit Manderscheid in this years tournament.
“I know what to expect so I expect a little better of myself now,” he said.
