A Williams Lake youth doubles bowling team will vie for a provincial gold medal next month when they travel to Vernon to compete at the Youth Bowl Canada Provincial Finals.
Renee O’Hara, 10, and Lily Stewart, 8, teamed up at the YBC National Championships Doubles Zone Round on Feb. 16 at Black Diamond Lanes in Prince George, bowling four games in a total pin-fall tournament to earn their berth in the bantam girls doubles event. At zones, O’Hara and Stewart came out ahead of the second-place team by 120 combined points, winning them the gold medal.
The team, coached by Travis McAlpine, will join fellow lakecity bowler Kara-Lynn McAlpine, 10, who qualified earlier this year in the bantam girls singles division, at the provincial competition March 7-8 at Lincoln Lanes in Vernon.
“They had a lot of fun competing in the tournament and were fun to watch,” Travis said of Renee and Lily, noting Renee is in her second year of competing at the bantam level, while Lily is in her first.
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“The thing I liked the most was they lifted each other up. Their teammate camaraderie was incredible, and it was fun to coach.”
For Renee, this will be the third time she will compete at a provincial championship. In 2018 she teamed up with Kara-Lynn to win gold in the bantam youth doubles division.”
In 2019 she bowled her way to a silver medal in the singles category.
This year will be Lily’s first time competing at a provincial championship.
“I liked it [zones] because we were 120 points ahead of second place, which was really good,” Lily said. “I was pretty shocked when we won.”
Lily said she and Renee will be practicing together each Thursday leading up to provincials in order to get more of a feel for each other’s play.
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“I think we’ll have a pretty good chance to do well,” Renee said. “We hope we can get a chance to go to nationals.”
Should either Renee and Lily in doubles, or Kara-Lynn finish first at provincials, a berth at the youth bowling nationals, being held this year in Calgary in May, awaits.
sports@wltribune.com
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