Pearland, Plano East win high school titles

Pearland won its first boys' state bowling title and Plano East took the girls' title at the Texas High School Bowling Club state tournament held March 26-27 at AMF Euless.

Pearland, the No. 9 seed following qualifying, beat top-seed San Antonio Madison, 2-1, in the quarterfinals, taking the deciding game 183-180. After beating No. 4 seed Flower Mound in the semifinals, Pearland took the title by beating San Antonio Taft in straight games, 246-161 and 227-181. Pearland team members are Anthony Travelstead, Dominque Moore, Nathan Ritter, Alex Strickland, Dylan Paddison, Zachary Halik, and Drew Tully. The team is coached by Kim Sherman.

William Ganem of Austin Anderson, the fifth seed in the 16-player finals bracket, took out the top two seeds en route to the boys' singles title. In the semifinals, Ganem beat top-seed Justin Tan of Flower Mound, 235-180, before taking a 208-204 victory over No. 2 seed Harrison Jarvis of San Antonio Madison in the title match.

Plano East defeated top-seed Katy, 2-1, to claim its first girls' state team title. After dropping the first game, Plano East came back to win the next two. Coached by Mark Plagens, Plano East team members are Sarah Pillars, Jac Purchell, Allison Blakley, Torrey Brown, Kelly McEvoy, Shana Greedes, Sabrynna Gibson and Kelsey Potts.

Keller Central's Danielle Walker, the top seed in qualifying, became the first two-time girls' singles champion with a 267-224 victory over Katy's Jelesa Maryland. Walker also won the title in 2008. Walker's run included a 3-2 victory over Stony Point's Rachel Wise in the quarterfinals in which Walker won the deciding game 180-179.

A total of 36 boys' and 36 girls' teams qualified to compete for the team title. The five-player teams bowled three qualifying games with the top 16 teams, based on total pinfall, advancing to the best-of-three match-play bracket. In the singles competition, 65 boys and 65 girls qualified for the state finals through 10 regional tournaments. The top 16 players were seeded for the match-play bracket by total pinfall after three qualifying games. The round of 16 and quarterfinals were best-of-three matches, while the semifinals and finals were single-game matches.