Oakland Activities Association teams are beginning to take advantage of the inexperience of the varsity bowling teams as the Wildcats lost to Royal Oak and Clarkston in their latest matches.
The latest setback came at the hands of Clarkston, who dispatched the girls 22 1/2 – 7 1/2 and defeated the boys 28 -2 on Monday, Jan. 31.
The girls led 6-4 after the baker round, but Clarkston roared ahead, winning eight of 10 matches and tying one in head-to-head play. Junior Heather Lafnear scored the only points for the girls, tying her opponent with a 237 in game one and winning 202-166 in game two.
Senior Brandon Barber scored the only two points for the boys with games of 246 and 189 in his victories.
Both teams battled their hearts out against Royal Oak on Monday, Jan. 24 but came up short. The girls lost 17-13, while the boys fell 19-11.
The girls lost the first baker game 188-149, but rebounded to take the second baker game 149-136.
Trailing entering head-to-head play, Oxford won three matches in game one behind the stong efforts of senior Aylssa Hurtado, junior Alex Logan and junior Colleen Walters. However they lost totals 850-794.
Despite Hurtado and Lafnear being the only bowlers to win matches in game two, the Wildcats still managed to win totals, 845-806.
On the boys side, they were not able to get anything going in the baker part of the match, losing both baker games.
They responded well in the head-to-head play with freshman Kyle Woody winning two matches, freshman Brandon Hurlburt , junior Mitch Guzanek and senior Kevin Rein each winning one game..
Oxford was able to win game two of head-up-play and totals, but it wasn’t enough to overcome zero points in the baker games.
‘This was a tough a couple weeks as we have had in a couple years,? varsity coach JR Lafnear said. ‘The teams we bowled were good and they bowled well. We made some mistakes at crucial times when we had a chance to pressure them.?
The two losses dropped the girls record to 4-3 on the season, while the boys sit at 3-4.