In her final season as a youth bowler, Paige Meise is a Canadian champion.
Gold at the Youth Bowl Canada five-pin national finals is reason to smile for the 19-year-old from Prince George's Black Diamond Lanes. And while Meise isn't the greedy sort, she can't help but think that things could have gone even better.
"It was a good way to finish, with a national title," said Meise, who was on the lanes Saturday through Monday in Regina. "I wish it could have been two, but I'll take one," she added with a laugh.
Meise earned her gold medal as part of B.C.'s senior mixed team, which included Black Diamond's Kassidy Johnson and the Port Coquitlam duo of Zachary Skipworth and Noah Erickson. Meise and Johnson also represented B.C. in senior girls doubles and, in a highly-competitive field, placed fifth.
In the mixed team portion of nationals, the B.C. bowlers grabbed the third of four playoff berths with a total pinfall of 4,676 in five games. First-place Newfoundland (5,155), second-place Quebec (4,819) and fourth-place Alberta (4,619) were the other playoff qualifiers. In the semifinals, Newfoundland topped Alberta 972-968 and B.C. beat Quebec 1,166-864. Then, in the final, B.C. took gold by outscoring Newfoundland 1,159-910.
Skipworth played a huge role in getting B.C. into the playoff round. In the five qualifying games, he averaged 270.
"Zach did a lot for us that first day," Meise said. "He killed everything. He did really, really well and we were just kind of there to support that."
As youth bowlers, Meise and Johnson (who has one more year of eligibility left) now own two national titles each. They also won gold when they were on a junior girls team in 2013.
Meise and Johnson claimed their ticket to the 2018 Canadian championships when they won the provincial senior girls doubles title in March. In doubles at nationals - which used a match-play format - they won six of their 14 matches (one point per win) and ended up two points shy of the playoffs, reserved for the top three finishers.
"I think we did really well - we ran into some headpin trouble," Meise said.
"There were so many matches where it came down to the 10th frame and we punched a headpin in the 10th. It happened most games for Kass. It was a killer for that, but we picked up our pins really well so that was nice."
In the playoffs, Northern Ontario defeated Newfoundland for gold.
Two other Prince George bowlers - Cylis Hendrickson and Spencer Ponto of Nechako Lanes - were also aiming for strikes in Regina. In the junior mixed team event, they combined with Maranda Eby and Natalie McCallum of Nanaimo for a seventh-place finish. Hendrickson and Ponto were also seventh in junior boys doubles, which saw them win three of their 14 matches. Both players were first-timers at nationals, after having secured the B.C. title in their division earlier this year.
"I felt it went alright," the 14-year-old Hendrickson said of the national experience. "There were a couple games that we should have won, where it came down to (frame) eight, nine and 10."
Hendrickson and Ponto both had some of their best games of the season at the national tournament. Hendrickson entered the championships with a 170 average and bumped that up to 200 in Regina. Ponto, meanwhile, went in with a 183 average and finished nationals at 184. Their individual high games were 301 (Hendrickson) and 259 (Ponto).
"I felt pretty good because I bowled my first 300 there," Hendrickson said.
"Everything was going really smoothly that game. I did my release properly and I was really on the middle."
