USA Bowling National Championships set to start in Dallas

ARLINGTON, Texas – The top youth teams in the country will seek national titles when the USA Bowling Championships presented by Sixlets starts Wednesday in the Dallas area.

The national championships event, in its third year, brings together 30 winners of regional tournaments. The 16 teams in the 15-and-under division and 14 teams in the 12-and-under division will try to advance through a double-elimination bracket for a spot in the finals, which will be televised on CBS Sports Network.

Competition starts Wednesday at 6 p.m. Eastern at AMF Garland Lanes with the qualifying round, which will consist of 15 matches, using a modified Baker format, to determine the seeding for the double-elimination match-play bracket.

Match play will start Thursday at 1:30 p.m. Eastern at USA Bowl and will consist of best-of-three Baker matches. BowlTV will provide livestream coverage of qualifying and match play.

The finals of both the U15 and U12 divisions will be held at the International Training and Research Center in Arlington on July 21. The single-elimination best-of-five Baker matches will be taped for broadcast on CBS Sports Network.

In the U15 division, the 2017 champion, 3 Rights Make a Left, will return three of its four players. Spencer Robarge, the 2015 Junior Gold U12 boys champion, Brandon Bonta and Silas Limes will be joined by Piper Reams to represent the Midwest Region. Last year, the team dropped the opening game of the title match before winning the next three to take the title.

Amanda Naujokas, the 2015 Junior Gold U12 girls champion who was a member of the U15 team that lost to 3 Rights Make a Left last year, will be part of the South Region team #Lucky7 this time around. The team includes Alex Horton, the runner-up in the U12 boys division at the 2014 Junior Gold event, and 2017 Junior Gold U12 boys champion Brandon Bohn.

The Indiana All Stars U15 team, the Ohio Valley Region champs, has two members who won the first USA Bowling National Championships U12 title in 2016. Reece Dunbar and Kyle Toyias were on the Indiana All Stars U12 team that won the title in Indianapolis.

Karina Capron, the 2017 Junior Gold U12 girls champion, will lead Upper Midwest Region U15 representative, Dodger Bowl, out of Nebraska.

Diego Jara and Nihal Mareedu will seek a second consecutive title in the U12 division as members of the Pacific Southwest Region champion. The duo helped the Cloverleaf Strikers to a 3-1 victory in the best-of-five modified Baker finals last year.

In the unique modified Baker format at the USA Bowling National Championships, the first two bowlers in the four-person lineup each bowl three frames in the game (1-5-9 and 2-6-10), respectively, while the other two competitors bowl two frames each (3-7 and 4-8).

The USA Bowling program was designed as a team-based youth program to introduce competitors to the sport, and it follows the same structure as other youth sports. It places children on a team, provides a coach for each team and conducts regular practices, along with weekly competitions.

USA Bowling is a product of the Youth Education Services (YES) Fund, a joint initiative of the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America and the United States Bowling Congress, supported by top bowling brands, including Bowling.com, Brunswick, Columbia 300, Ebonite, Hammer, QubicaAMF, Roto Grip, Storm and Track.

Visit BOWL.com/USABowling to learn more about the USA Bowling program and the USA Bowling National Championships.

In addition to the USA Bowling National Championships, the Junior Gold Championships presented by the Brands of Ebonite International and the Bowling.com Youth Open Championships will take place in the Dallas area.

The Junior Gold Championships start Monday at eight area bowling centers and will have a record field of approximately 3,900 bowlers. The event features the top youth bowlers in the country seeking national titles in 20-and-under, 15-and-under and 12-and-under divisions for boys and girls, a total of six divisions. Spots on Junior Team USA and part of a tournament record $350,000 scholarship fund also will be up for grabs.

The Youth Open Championships, already underway, is a non-qualifying national event that will continue July 20-22 and 28-29 at Cityview Lanes in Fort Worth.