In their first year as five-pin bowlers, four local women will throw for a Canadian title.
Cheryl Antoniazzi, Veronica Laass, Diane Bertram and Mandy Erickson will play as Team B.C. at the Inter-Provincial national championship, April 26-29 in Thunder Bay, Ont. The tournament will use a match-play, pins-over-average format.
Antoniazzi and company qualified for nationals by winning the B.C. crown in March in Chilliwack. Provincials was also a pins-over-average event.
Up until this season, Antoniazzi, Laass, Bertram and Erickson played the 10-pin variety of the game. They switched to five-pin - which uses a much smaller and lighter ball - because of nagging injuries to Antoniazzi (arthritis-like symptoms) and Laass (shoulder problems).
"Throwing the 10-pin ball, it was really heavy and it would hurt," Antoniazzi said. "I jokingly said at the end of [last] year, 'I have to check into five-pin because it's really difficult to do this now.' And they said, 'Well yeah, we should check into that.'"
And they did. At the start of this season, they walked into Black Diamond Lanes and had a chat with Kyle Parker, the proprietor. Parker welcomed them with open arms and got them started in a Wednesday night ladies league. Knowing that his new bowlers were interested in going out of town for tournaments, he told them about the Inter-Provincial playoffs, which featured zone, B.C. and national championships.
Leading up to the playoffs, Parker let Antoniazzi, Laass, Bertram and Erickson practice for free. After a zone victory, they traveled to Chilliwack for provincials and went up against nine other teams for the B.C. championship. In a five-game set, they finished 198 pins higher than their team average of 562. In the standings, they were 94 pins ahead of the second-place team from Chilliwack and 122 up on the third-place crew from Maple Ridge.
Bertram said they went into provincials with no expectations. After a sub-par first couple games, they caught fire and vaulted to the top of the leaderboard.
But, they didn't know they were champions until the very end.
"Our numbers were coming in quite high, so many of the teams were saying, 'You should be looking to see where you're standing because you might be in the running,'" Bertram said. "I just said, 'We're here to have fun and we don't want to put any pressure on the team. Whatever happens, happens.' We bowled it out and then they made the announcement and we were pretty shocked."
For players who throw a relatively straight ball in 10-pin bowling, Antoniazzi and Bertram both said adjusting to five-pin isn't too difficult. But, for those who throw a curving ball in 10-pin, switching to five-pin isn't always a smooth process.
"I have found it quite difficult, having played 10-pin for close to 10 years," Antoniazzi said. "For me, the difficulty has come because I throw a hook ball in 10-pin. You can throw a hook ball in five-pin, but it's different. It's a different game. I'm enjoying it, but it's a little frustrating at times."
At nationals, the Black Diamond ladies will once again play for the fun of it and let the chips - make that, pins - fall where they may.
"Obviously we'd all like to win," Bertram said with a laugh.
"That said, we'll all go with the same kind of mindset that we entered the provincial tournament - that is, we're going to do our best but we're going to go and we're going to have fun. That's the key for us. If we're not having fun, there's no point in doing this."
