They know perfection
It’s a family game.
Four of the best junior bowlers in the Spokane Valley took up the game when a parent signed them up for a junior or family league. They’ve grown up with a game that will now help them pay for a college education.
Malina Brown, 19, and brothers Nick and Josh Schmehl are headed to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., next month to compete in the national championship tournament – and for all three it will be a return trip to the national tourney.
At 17, Todd Benner is one of the hottest bowlers on the Junior Bowlers Tour, throwing his fourth career 300 game two weeks ago.
“These are four of the best young bowlers in the Spokane Valley,” Spokane JBT coordinator Patty Dudley said. “They all come from really strong bowling families, too.”
Brown has been bowling for 11 years and qualified for this year’s nationals by winning a state-wide tournament last month in Kelso, Wash.
“The top eight from the first day qualified for the finals,” she said. “I qualified in eighth position.”
Brown came on strong in the match-play portion of the tournament and came home with a $500 college scholarship and another $500 toward her trip to Fort Lauderdale.
“I guess if you’re going to win one, that’s a pretty good way to do it,” she said of her Sunday performance.
Benner bowled his first 300 game in February last year.
“During the previous summer, I got down to the last ball three times and came away with seven, eight and nine pins,” he said, referring to 297, 298 and 299 scores. “When I finally got the 300 I was so relieved.”
A month later, he repeated the feat with a dozen strikes in a row.
“You get into a rhythm and you start blocking people out and blocking things out that bother you,” he said. “After you get past six strikes in a row and your body is really stringing them in there, there’s pressure, but your body is trained to do that. As long as you don’t worry about things too much you’ll be OK.
His most recent perfect game came two weeks ago on a league night at Valley Bowl.
“About a week before that I shot 299,” he said. “When I looked up for that last frame everyone was gathered around watching me. The whole place had stopped. I felt a lot more pressure then.”
The past year has been a strong one for Benner, who finished fourth in the Spokane JBT standings behind first-place finisher Josh Schmehl and Valley Bowl teammate Matt Descoteaux.
“Over the last year I’ve gotten a lot stronger and more confident physically,” he said. “I still have some work to do, though.
“I think the competition has really helped me. Before, when I wasn’t bowling in tournaments and things like that I wasn’t really challenged. Once I started bowling against older kids and got into tournaments, and as I’ve matured, I learned a lot and my game has gotten a lot better.”
Benner has his sites set on competing professionally.
“That’s my dream – to take this all the way,” he said
During the 2004-05 JBT season, Nick and Josh Schmehl finished one-two.
Nick, now 19, knocked down a total of 17,838 pins to his brother’s 16,404.
Last year Josh, 21, finished first with 18,569 pins.
Both are headed to Fort Lauderdale and the national tournament – with Josh picking up $500 toward the trip by winning the boys half of the tournament in Kelso.
“That was the first time we’ve had both the boys and the girls winner of that tournament come from Valley Bowl,” Dudley said. “I can’t even remember the last time we had one winner from here.”
Each brother has a pair of career 300 games under their belt and each is paying for some of their college education – Nick at Eastern Washington University and Josh at Washington State – through the sport.
“I’ve done pretty well bowling in tournaments in Las Vegas,” Josh said. “One tournament last year I earned about $1,000 in scholarship money and at another I got about $750. We also have scholarship brackets through the JBT events here in town and I got $500 from the tournament in Kelso.”
“I bowled in the Teen Masters tournament in Cleveland, placed seventh and won $1,200 in scholarships,” Nick said.