BY Jake Williams | STAFF WRITER
It was after Game 2 when Riverhead High School's Elliot Jones had the opportunity to apply the biggest lesson he said he learned last weekend at the boys individual state bowling championships in Poughkeepsie.
"It was a great experience," Jones said of his first trip to state tournament. "It helped me with my bowling about keeping my composure and having a positive attitude even when it's not looking good."
And after the second of six games, with the Section XI all stars mired in ninth place, it was not looking good. It would have been easy enough, Jones said, to let the frustration of a bad start get the better of him and his teammates.
Instead, Jones and his Section XI teammates, Ed Tuskan and John Knieriemen of East Islip, Anthony Neste of Comsewogue and Thomas Nelson of West Babylon, scored a 1,195 in Game 3. With that, they moved up from ninth to fourth place. Eventually, Section XI climbed to a third-place finish, 48 pins behind Section I's 6,580.
Jones said that because they stayed positive after Game 2, they were able to make up for a rough start in Game 3. By the time Game 4 started, Jones added, the team was back to feeling positive.
Neste gave them all the more reason to feel good after Game 4. He rolled a perfect game, becoming only the seventh bowler to record a perfect game in state tournament history. The last person to roll a 300 in a state tournament was William Floyd's Lou Giordani in 2008.
"It was great," Jones said of watching Neste's Game 4 performance. "The whole team, we really got going rooting for each other. It was really cool to be on a team where someone shot a 300."
Jones did not have the same type of performance on Sunday. He finished at 1,259 for a 210 average, somewhat lower than the 227.8 he averaged during the regular season.
He called his performance "O.K." and said it could have been better. It was not helped by a bad ball switch Jones made in one game. However, he did say that he did not struggle adapting to the wooden lanes at Mardi Bob where the tournament was held. "I know how to play them," Jones said.
There were a couple times, Jones added, when he found himself feeling down or getting angry because he was not bowling as well as he had hoped. It has been his experience that when he finds himself competing against better bowlers, Jones said, that the level of his game rises as well. In Poughkeepsie he found that was not happening.
But as he observed those bowlers, he found something that, while it might not have helped him immediately, could assist his game immeasurably in the future.
"I saw that the best bowlers, if they missed a spare, they wouldn't get down," Jones said. "They held their heads high and moved on to the next frame. I got a lot better at that."
He said his teammates' support helped him as well. Though they missed out on their ultimately goal of winning the tournament, Jones said he was happy with third place.
"We did a great job," he said. "We tried our hardest and that's all that matters."
And now having been to the state championships, Jones will aim to qualify again next year.
jwilliams@northshoresun.com
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