WIAA Girls 3A State Bowling: Kennewick roars to team win; Spanaway’s Yeager runs away with individual title

2/5/2024

(Tukwila, WA) The 2024 3A State Girls Bowling tournament was held at the Bowlero Lanes in Tukwila on Friday and Saturday. The team competition was over 2 days while individual honors were decided on day 1.

Individual Competition

The individual competition was hot from the start with a total of 3 600+ series rolled in the first 3 games. None were as hot as Spanaway Lake’s Tamia Yeager though as she blistered the hardwood of Bowlero lanes with a 216, 226 and 226 for a 668 series. This would be the high series for the tournament and for all 3 tournaments.

Yeager did have company with a super Freshman from Bonney Lake Jaydan Thayer who fired a 202, 202 and 209 for a 613 series trailing Yeager by 55 pins. Lexis McGarity of Kennewick was next with 202, 192 and 213 for a 607 series. These would be the 3 of the 5 600 series bowled in all tournaments. The others were both bowled in the 2nd 3 games and were Lily Mattison in 2A/1A with a 663 and Ada Querin of West Valley (Yak) in 4A with a 602.

There was one other that just missed a 600, Izabella Hewes from Prairie rolled a 594 with a 185, 215 and 195 and Hewes sitting in 4th place after the 1st three games. After the 594 there was a considerable drop to 5th place of a 559 fort Kourtnie Foss of Kennewick.

In the 2nd session Yeager shot a 179 and opened the door for both Thayer and McGarity to close the gap which they did. Thayer scored her 4th 200 game in a row with a 212 and closed to within 16 pins of the leader. McGarity had a 192 to pick up 21 pins and trailed by 42. In the 5th game of the day Yeager sealed the win blowing out the highest game of all 3 tournaments with a 236 while Thayer stumbled with a 169 losing 67 pins back to Yeager now down by 85 while McGarity had a 188 giving back 48 pins and trailed by 89.

Heading into the final game Yeager could shut them out with a 234 meaning Thayer would have to bowl a 300. For a realistic shot, Yeager had averaged through 5 games a 217 she would have had to had a complete failure of shooting in the 130’s while either Thayer or McGarity would have to hit in the low 200’s. McGarity did with a 200 but Thayer struggled again with a 170 and Yeager bowled her lowest score of the day but more than enough to secure the Championship with a 173.

McGarity’s 200 did surge her past Thayer for 2nd place while Thayer dropped to 3rd. Thayer again is just a Freshman and McGarity a Sophomore so the next couple of years could be quite the battle to watch.

The 3A awarded medals to the top 12 and there was actually a tie for 12th between River Ridge’s Shaynah-Ann Suzuki and Central Kitsap’s Mya Hagge. A 2-frame roll off was completed and Suzuki came away with the 12th place medal. Here is a complete list of the top 12:

1st Tamia Yeager Spanaway Lake 1256
2nd Lexis McGarity Kennewick 1187
3rd Jaydan Thayer Bonney Lake 1164
4th Kourtnie Foss Kennwick 1115
5th Izabella Hewes Prairie 1110
6th Samantha McMaster Kennewick 1083
7th Calista Tippett Kennewick 1077
8th Alena McDugle Thomas Jefferson 1075
9th Molly Combs West Seattle 1073
10th Lexie Zabel Everett 1058
11th Samiya Gildon Thomas Jefferson 1052
*12th Shaynah-Ann Suzuki River Ridge 1043
*12th Mya Hagge Central Kitsap 1043
* Suzuki won the 2 frame roll off for the 12th place medal

Lane notes:

Tamia Yeager of Spanaway Lake had the high game of the tournament and the highgame of all 3 tournaments with a 236. Interestingly enough 236 was the high overall game with the 4A high game a 235 and the 2A/1A high game a 234. Yeager led an onslaught of 200 games in the 3A tournament with a total of 30 200+ games scored. In comparison the 4A tournament had 22 200+ games and the 2A/1A just 8. The 3rd game alone had 9 200’s with the 2nd game also red hot with 8 200’s.

Yeager had 4 200’s with the 236 along with 216, 226 and a 226. Jaydan Thayer also had 4 200’s with a high of 212 with a 209 and a pair of 202’s. Lexis McGarity rolled 3 with a 213, 202 and 200 so the top 3 bowlers accounted for 11 of the 30 200+ games.

Kourtnie Foss of Kennewick had a 224, Izabella Hewes of Prairie rolled a 215, Calista Tippett of Kennewich rolled a 207 and a 200, Alena McDugle from TJ fired a 234, Lexie Zabel of Everett had a 209, Samiya Gildon of TJ with a 200, Mya Hagge from CK with a 208, Ashley Richards of Peninsula scored a 219, Justice Jenkins from West Seattle with a big 223 in her final game, Kasumi Cruse from Prairie with a 205, Chloe Shove from Evergreen (Van) rolled a 204, Keira Frazier of Silas zinged a 219, Maya Ranada from CK led off with a 207, Sydney Golden of Southridge had a 200, Alaina Dugenstein of Spanaway Lake with a 205,Aurora Garcia from Silas with a 205 and Erika Andres of Spanaway Lake with a 200.

One final game was from Thomas Jefferson’s Malia Tewey. Malia in 5 of her games averaged 125. Her average over all 6 games was 141. Malia got hot in the 2nd game and blew out a 222. We’re not sure but wouldn’t surprise us if this was Malia’s best game ever and was awesome to watch stay focused and come through with her game of the tournament.

Two other high scores we want to point out is the highest score of anyone who bowled 4 games or fewer went to Erika Andres of Spanaway Lake with a 200 and just behind was Serenity Dahy also of Spanaway Lake with a 190.

Team Competition

In the team competition it is a combination of the 6 individual series combined with 14 games of the Baker finals format on day 2. Just the top 4 teams get a trophy.

Despite SL’s Yeager putting up a huge individual series with a 668 the Kennewick Lions consistency laid way to a massive lead after day 1. The Lions had 4 bowlers in the top 7 and their 5th Clida Bleichner-Ramos was 26th out of 99 bowlers as the quintet posted an eye-popping 5400 1st day total and led by a massive 354 pins. Kennewick would have to have a complete melt down on day 2 during the Baker Game finals.

Spanaway Lake was securely in 2nd place also cracking the 5000 level at 5046. Spanaway Lake would get off to a solid start on day 2 and would make a dent in the Lions lead giving some of the Kennewick faithful in attendance a little uneasiness as the Lions rolled a 160, 186, 136 and a 149 in the 1st 4 games of the Baker’s for a 631 for a combined total of 6031.

The Sentinels led their 1st 4 games with a Baker format high core of 236 would put together a 4-game 729 series to cut into the Lions lead by 98 pins for a 5775 total down by 256. But in the end Kennewick would actually win 8 of the head-to-head Baker games with Spanaway Lake including matching their tournaments high 236. Kennewick fnished with an astounding 7784 to SL’s 7328. The Sentinels were well in front of 3rd place but with just 4 team trophies awarded the race of the day was for 3rd and 4th between 3 teams.

Beginning the day Thomas Jefferson was in 3rd with a total pin count of 4715, Central Kitsap was 4th with 4684 or down just 43 pins and Evergreen (Vancouver) the defending Champs were in 5th with a total of 4672 trailing CK by 12 and TJ by 55. The TJ Raiders would ultimately beat CK and Evergreen 6 of the 14 times in the Baker’s and was the only team to have 2 200+ games with a 222 and 220 and nearly had a 3rd with a 198 to pull away from the other 2 teams and clinch 3rd place with a total of 7029 the 3rd team to break the 7000 mark.

Evergreen made up some big ground early and in fact moved into 3rd place in front of TJ after the 1st 3 games rolling a 176, 196 and 192 for a 564 3 game total to push their lead over the Cougars who began with a 405 series to a 5236-5077 lead or up by 159 pins. Through 9 Baker games not much changed with Evergreen leading with a 149 pin advantage but in game 10 the Plainsmen would begin their game with 9 straight open frames and only mark in the 10th by picking up the 3-9-10 split and striking for an 87. The Cougars picked up 95 pins and could have had more but a late open frame ended in a 182 but CK was back in the race for a trophy down just 54.

Evwergreen came back with a 130 with another chance for CK but they lost ground with a 119 opening up in the final 3 frames. Trailing by 65 with 2 games to go CK split the difference with a 170 to 145 to pull within 40 and in the final game the Plainsmen did enough with a 150 to hold on to the 4th place trophy to CK’s 154 coming up 36 pins short.

So the official order of finish was Kennewick 1st, 2nd Spanaway Lake, 3rd Thomas Jefferson, 4th Rvergreen (Van), 5th Central Kitsap, 6th River Ridge, 7th Prairie, 8th Capital, 9th West Seattle, 10th Everett, 11th Seattle Prep and 12th was Ingraham.

Teams and Coaches

1st Place Kennewick Lions 7784
Team members: Calista Tippett (12), Kourtnie Foss (12), Clida Bleichner-Ramos (12), Samantha McMaster (11), Lexis McGarity (10), Anna Hardin (10), Melissa Mendoza Gutierrez (9)
Head Coach: Tom Richardson Assistant Coach: Diane Okerman Athletic Director: Anna Harris

2nd Place Spanaway Lake Sentinels 7328
Team members: Erika Andres (12), Serenity Dahy (12), Alaina Degenstein (11), A’Mya Buckley (11), Tamia Yeager (11), Audrianna Hegedus (10), Kendra Marquardt (10)
Head Coach: Sebastian Foreman Assistant Coach: Lacey Crow Athletic Director: Brooke Wilkinson

3rd Place Thomas Jefferson Raiders 7029
Team members: Presley Laird (12), Malia Tewey (12), Samyia Gildon (11), Emily Kropp (11), Alena McDugle (11), Lyla Smith (11),
Head Coach: Joseph Townsend Assistant Coach: Michaela Swiney Athletic Director: Courtney McCurry

4th Place Evergreen (Van) Plainsmen 6846
Team members: Zoey Mikkelson (12), Savannah McMurtry (12), Chloe Shove (11), Alissa Barber (10), Bella Curry (10), Leah Mikkelson (9), Emma Macheras (9)
Head Coach: Robin Bailey Assistant Coach: Dennis Bailey Athletic Director: Roger Shepard

5th Place Central Kitsap Cougars 6793
Team members: Mya Hagge (12), Aiyona Harris (12), Tayler Lindstrom (12), Jade Casal (11), Maya Ranada (11), Jhazel Tirador (10), Liz Suarez (10)
Head Coach: Annelito Casal Assistant Coach: Preston Craig Athletic Director: Rob Clements

6th Place River Ridge Hawks 6321
Team members: Alena Bondareva (12), Shaynah-Ann Suzuki (12), Nina Williamson (12), Athena Farias-Chet (11), Scarlett Scroggins (11), Paige Eggert (9), Mackayla Laabs (9)
Head Coach: Renee Pittlekau Athletic Director: Jami Gore

7th Place Prairie Falcons 6307
Team members: Becca Webber (12), Kasumi Crouse (12), Lauren Bisson (11), Jennifer Cabusao (11), Izabella Hewes (11), Faith Ordway (10), Emily Boland (10)
Head Coach: None listed Athletic Director: Stephanie Watts

8th Place Capital Cougars 6149
Team members: Autumn Ebsen (12), Mira Evans (12), Gigi Koa (12), Maddie Moore (12), Emily Swan (12), Talia Gubbe (11), Claire Touney (11)
Head Coach: Assistant Coach: Athletic Director:

9th Place West Seattle Wildcats 6090
Team members: Ruby Kerwin (12), Malia Barker (11), Molly Combs (10), Justice Jenkins (10), Madison Miller (10), Matilde Smith (9)
Head Coach: Jeremy Marzofka Athletic Director: Corey Sorenson

10th Place Everett Seagulls 5947
Team members: Julie Hansen (12), Sydney Cochems (11), Kaylewigh Barnes (11), Moira Wilkins (10), Ellie Flannigan (10), Lexie Zabel (10), Hazel Burghdoff (9)
Head Coach: Marjorie Bovey Athletic Director: Erik Heinz

11th Place Seattle Prep Panthers 5627
Team members: Beza Honelign (11), Dahlia Wallace (10), Emma Le (10), Bitania Misiker (10), Mahta Teamrat (9), Annabelle Bowman (9)
Head Coach: Mike Massoth Athletic Director: Sam Reed

12th Place Ingraham Rams 5310
Team members: Makena Nishimura (10), Esi Ako-Adjei (10), Elizabeth Bun (10), Lalie Lyman-Mahan (10), Amelia Schryba (10), Indie Morse (9), Solveigh Furuness (9)
Head Coach: Summer Raynor Athletic Director: Mike Wentzel

Interviews

ESN talks with Individual Champ Tamia Yeager and Spanaway Lake Coach Sebastian Foreman