‘Just relax and roll it.’ Experience pays off for state bowling champ from Lexington.
For the second year in a row, a Lexington bowler with state finals experience brought home the KHSAA Girls Singles State Bowling Championship on Monday at Kingpin Lanes in Jeffersontown..
Like last year, Henry Clay’s Kendall Craig entered Monday’s stepladder state finals as the No. 2 seed after the preliminary rounds.
Disappointed a year ago just one step away from the championship match, Craig bowled two great games in this year’s finals to come away as the singles champ.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Craig said in a phone interview Monday night. “I felt like I bowled as good as I could have. … It was good that I didn’t leave that many pins out there for anyone to catch me.”
In the finals against top seed Shelbi Webb of Boyle County, Craig completed her frames with a score of 199. When Webb missed a 10th-frame strike she needed to keep up, Kendall knew the title was hers. Webb finished with a 187.
“When she didn’t get the strike, it was, like, exciting, but also shocking a little bit,” Craig admitted.
Craig’s title was part of three days of state championship competition with the girls team and singles matches on Monday, the boys team and singles matches on Tuesday and the unified and adapted competitions on Wednesday.
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Broox Golden, the 2022 boys singles state champion who also helped the Bulldogs claim the team title that year, finished runner-up in singles on Tuesday. Louisville Trinity’s Ethan Ackermann won the title 207-190.
Pleasure Ridge Park swept the boys and girls team championships.
The girls singles competition Monday began with 32 bowlers from across the state. The field narrowed to the top eight after three games and then to the top four after two more games. Kendall’s combined five-game score of 1,027 meant she would get a bye as the second seed in the four-bowler win-or-go home stepladder finals format.
Craig, a junior, and her coach and mom Melinda Craig both credited the experience she gained last year as the No. 2 seed as a factor in her success this year. Craig lost to eventual champion Avery Reeves of Lafayette in last year’s stepladder finals. Reeves, like Craig, had fallen in the previous year’s finals before winning it.
“I think that I’ve improved mentally and physically,” Kendall Craig said. “Having more experience and more familiarity with the bowling alley (helped).”
Craig bowled a 234 against Bullitt Central’s Danica Lyons’ 158 to reach the championship game. Craig admitted some nerves, but said she’s learned to put those aside.
“It’s a little nerve-wracking if you don’t stay in the moment and just relax and roll it,” Craig said. “You have more of an advantage if you just do it one shot at a time.”
Complete bowling results are available online at khsaa.org/2023-2024-state-region-bowling-results-entries/.
