A local competitive 10-pin bowler recently scored the high mark of earning a spot on the 2017 Canadian national team.
Monique Ley, who regularly trains at Estevan Bowl, qualified for Team Canada by placing sixth at the May 19-23 Canadian Team Trials in Burlington, Ontario, with a total score of 4,691 after 21 games. The Estevan native began training for the Canadian Team Trials in September before ramping up the schedule in October with regular tournament play and extra practice time in a bid to get ready for her first team trials competition in eight years.
“It was hard, especially against people from Ontario,” said Ley, who noted the competitors bowled six games a day in the tournament moving straight from one lane to the next. “I don’t really have a coach, so it makes my mindset more intense with the moment. I have to really focus on what exactly I’m doing. They played an oil pattern every single day, so it was hard. But I stayed afloat and just kept pushing through and succeeded.”
As a member of Team Canada, Ley will start her participation by meeting with national head coach Tyrel Rose who will supply her with different exercises to work on over the next year and a half to get ready for the 2017 world championships.
Ley said there will be about four personalized practices a week that she will have to complete to get ready for the games. She said heading to more tournaments over that time to get more experience in competitive oil pattern 10-pin bowling is also a must.
“It’s pretty huge,” said Ley, noting the farthest she has gone in competitive bowling since entering the sport as a 12-year-old in 1997 was the 2007 Bowling World Cup Championships in St. Petersburg, Russia. “This tournament would involve singles, teams and doubles, so this would be my next biggest thing I’ve done in my career.”
