Female bowlers score bronze in doubles

by Shannon Bertling on September 10, 2009

The bowling doubles event kicked off at 9 a.m. Wednesday with American teamsters Raimondas Doblemeier and Darrell Stogryn opening on a roll. However, at the end of the day, only two of the twelve American bowlers were able to place in the top three. Despite Randall Perry's gold in the singles event Tuesday, the American bowlers knew they had their work cut out for them Wednesday. "Chinese Taipei is among the strongest competition here," Jerilyn Keller said. "They've been practicing, on average, eight hours a day." Doblmeier agreed, adding that the Taipei team has a huge "home lane" advantage. "Also, Korea has really improved since the 2005 Melbourne Deaflympics," Keller observed before the start of the women's doubles event. "We'll need to watch out for them." Taipei took silver in the women's division and placed fourth in the men's. Korea placed fourth in the women's division and nabbed gold and silver in the men's division. The women's doubles event started at 1 p.m. Wednesday, and the U.S. claimed bronze. The six women from America struck down a total of 6,008 pins. Two of these women in particular took down a combined total of 2,108 pins to earn their third-place berth. Although solid bowlers Cheyenne Rogers and Jerilynn Keller were expected to lead the American pack, they fell behind to eighth place with 2,064 pins. "The third match was what really hurt our tally," Rogers said. Dark horses Patricia Brothag and Sharon DiTondo jumped into a third-place tie by the end of the fifth match, and went on to nab the bronze. They started off slow, but persevered with high spirits and took turns knocking down a high number of pins per match. Brothag knocked down 212 pins in her second match and 211 in the fifth match. DiTondo had 191 in match four and felled 206 to end the game. "I'm feeling good, but I know we could do better," Brothag said after the second match, with 369 pins under her belt. A duo from Finland went through 2,147 pins to win the gold, and Chinese Taipei took silver with 2,140 downed ones. Brothag averaged a score of 180, and DiTondo averaged 171, but the highest bowling average of the day belonged to sixth-place Chinese Taipei's Yao Chien Chang, with a 186 average. In the men's division, Doblmeier averaged a 196, and his combined score of 2,306 with Stogryn originally put them in second place after the 9 a.m. matches ended. But after the second round of male bowlers played in the afternoon, the American duo found themselves in fifth place. Gene Takinen and Ronnie Zuchegno came in 24th with 2,116 pins. Robert Ellison and Randall Perry came in 23rd with 2,122 pins. Thursday morning opens with the trios bowling event.

(Photo by Hui Zhang)

Female bowlers score bronze in doubles

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