Let’s start with a sports quiz:
Who is the reigning Lancaster-Lebanon League individual girls’ bowling champion?
Why, that would be ELCO’s Morgan Kline, back for her senior year and committed to continue her standout bowling career next season at Wichita State, one of the top bowling colleges in the country and winner of multiple national titles.
Pam Rittle, head coach at ELCO for three years, told LebTown that bowling is definitely an under-the-radar sport. It’s also different from the majority of sports in that teams are often co-ed – unless enough girls come out to form a girls’ team. Then those girls compete against other girls’ teams.
One of two girls on the ELCO squad, Kline boasts the top average this season among girls in the L-L League at 231 per game. Kline’s teammate Hunter Heinsey is third among boys with a 232 average.
Kline has missed some games with ELCO recently because she’s been competing at Pro Bowlers Association Junior tournaments.
“Morgan practices constantly,” Rittle replied, when asked what makes Kline exceptional. “She knows bowling inside and out.”
Five of Lebanon County’s public high schools field teams in the L-L League. Cedar Crest is in Section 1; Lebanon is in Section 2; ELCO is in Section 3; and Northern Lebanon/Palmyra fields a joint team in Section 4. Annville-Cleona has no bowling team.
Northern Lebanon/Palmyra is moving to Section 3 next school year, said first-year head coach Josh Evans, a Northern Lebanon alumnus who bowled a rare perfect game of 300 while competing for the school.
The bowling regular season starts at the end of November and wraps up in January. Evans said he doesn’t know how long Lebanon County’s high schools have fielded squads but “bowling has been around for years.”
Barb Tobias, who coached the Lebanon bowling squad years ago, told LebTown the sport was first a club competition until teams were formed in 1985. Her predecessor with the Cedars, Irv Stuckey, is the main reason bowling made the jump to the Lancaster-Lebanon League, she said.
In the beginning, the four teams from Lebanon County were Lebanon, Lebanon Catholic, Northern Lebanon and ELCO.
Tobias, who was very successful coaching at Lebanon, retiring in 2003, has a picture in her basement, in pride of place, of her 1999-2000 L-L championship team. She said her early squads were all male but then girls started coming out; the championship squad was co-ed.
Lebanon County native Mark Gerberich is a big name in bowling. But he only took up the sport after high school, he told LebTown – at one point playing in eight leagues simultaneously. It paid off, as he finished 12th in the country as a senior at New York’s St. John’s University.
He started at an entry-level job with the Pro Bowlers Association in 1983 and worked his way up to commissioner in 1996, serving until 2000.
Gerberich’s LinkedIn profile said he oversaw an $11 million operation, a 21-person staff and independent contractors, while managing over 200 tournaments nationally and around the world. He was inducted into the PBA Hall of Fame for Meritorious Service in 2017.
Championship tournaments upcoming
In each section of the league, the top two teams advance to the postseason, which also crowns the L-L individual champions among girls and boys.
As of Jan. 18, Northern Lebanon/Palmyra was first in Section 4 with a 30-12 league record and a 40-30 overall record.
The home venue for Northern Lebanon/Palmyra, Lebanon and Cedar Crest is Palmyra Bowling Center. ELCO bowls at Berks Lanes.
Evans, who started as an assistant bowling coach at Northern Lebanon in 2009, said bowlers with 190-200 averages or in that vicinity make the L-L singles tournament.
A team match includes three games with five bowlers per team. “We shoot for an average of 200” for each bowler, Evans said. “We’ve hit over 1,000 a few times.”
Charlie Albright is Northern Lebanon/Palmyra’s “anchor” bowler, who goes last in the lineup, Evans told LebTown.
The L-L team championship is Feb. 6 at Cain’s Lanes, Manheim; the boys’ singles tournament is Feb. 9 at 222 Dutch Lanes, Ephrata, and the girls’ tournament is Feb. 12 at Clearview Lanes, Mount Joy.
Evans said several of his bowlers should qualify for the singles tournament, including Albright, Dominick Judkins and Brentin Sherman in the boys and Paxton Horner in the girls.
Next is the PIAA District 3 tournament, which is scheduled for Feb. 24 at Hanover Bowling Centre.
And this year, the state tournament will be held in central Pennsylvania, at Leisure Lanes in Lancaster. The singles championship is March 15 and the team contest is March 16.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article misstated where Josh Evans began his coaching career. We sincerely regret the error.
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