When Elliott Gordon, representing Ohio, came out of the block with a 296 game, he put the U15 division and the rest of the Storm Youth Championship bowlers at All Star Lanes in Baton Rouge on notice that he knew exactly what to do with a short 37-foot oil pattern.
By the time he added a 218 and 256 in the next two games for an opening three-game series of 770, everyone in the center was paying attention.
After a final game of 267, Gordon took the gold medal and scholarship money in the U15 division for the pattern by averaging 252.4 and a five-game total of 1,262.
He led by 174 pins entering the second five games on a 41-foot medium pattern, and, while he was not able to duplicate his first round, he will enter Sunday’s final five games with a 104-pin lead.
Louisiana got medals on the first day as Albany’s Caroline Engeron in the U15 girls division, earned the bronze with a five-game short pattern score of 847. Engeron then came back in the medium pattern and finished second for the silver medal with a 944 (188.8 average). For 10 games, she is second with a 179 average, 120 pins back of first.
Olivia Bares, who bowls for Chapelle High School and has the fourth best prep average in the state going into next week’s playoffs, had the high game for the girls for the day with a 258 on the short pattern.
The U18 divisions are led by Karina Capron, who won the SYC last month in her home state of Nevada, with a 198 average and a nine-pin lead in the girls, and Logan Frishman of Texas leads the boys with a 221 average.
In the U12 division, Kristofer Wagner of Florida is the 10-game leader after a 278 propelled him to an average for the day of 206.
The final five games to determine the overall titles on the 44-foot long pattern begins at 10 a.m. Sunday.
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