B.C. champs miss critical step at national 5-pin finals

They turned it on when they had to. But by then, the damage had been done.

Too few pins knocked down in the opening two days of competition at the women's team five-pin bowling national championship left a team of six Prince George women in a hole too deep to reach a rung on the final-four stepladder. They needed that to keep their title hopes alive in Surrey.

Heading into Friday's final six-game match play round, the B.C. team champions -- Kelsy Hogh, Kim Thompson, Leigh Anne Paull, Mary Ann Sanders, Kayla Clark and Rhonda Meise -- were in eighth place out of 10 at the national final, and that's where they ended up. While disappointed they fell short of the playoffs, their third-round surge was enough to raise spirits.

"We knew going into [Friday] we were going to have to bowl pretty amazing to pull it out and get into the stepladder and considering how much work we had cut out for us, we did bowl amazing," said Thompson.

"We were pretty far out of the running, but didn't let that discourage us and I'm proud of my team. Every game [Friday] we bowled to our potential. I don't know if our nerves got to us the first couple days but we weren't throwing our usual game but [Friday] was a different story. We bowled to our potential, like we did at provincials."

The problem for Team B.C. was, so did Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. In that order, they formed the stepladder.

"The Ontario team bowled lights out, I'm in awe of them, they bowled so good and they deserved to be in first place," said Thompson. "Unfortunately, all the teams that we needed to catch bowled as good as we did [Friday]. We did finish on a high note and we're eager to get back here and do it again."

Hogh, who won the B.C. singles championship in 2010, bowled above her average all three days. The B.C. team was never blown out in their match-play games, losing several close decisions.

"The ladies all bowled well [Friday], it was very impressive," said B.C. team coach Ed Stepski. "They bowled the best they had all weekend but a slow start killed us. It was a great team to coach, probably the most enjoyable weekend I've had in all the years I've done it. No animosity, everybody got along and there was lots of cheering."