Members of the EHS bowling team after they won the Burlington County Scholastic League tournament. Pictured in front are head coach Michael Tucker, Aniia-Mai Jones, Rebecca Abelowitz, Jessie Garzio, Norma Nieves, Brianna Jobst and Marc Trabosh. At rear are Matt Abelowitz, Justin Hammond, Albert Doleatip and John Zaggi.
The Ewing High School boys’ bowling team wasn’t expecting much heading into 2015.
In addition to an inconsistent prior season — though the squad still captured the sectional title — the Blue Devils graduated a handful of standouts, so head coach Mike Tucker and some returning seniors had low expectations.
Other than varsity veterans Marc Trabosh and Tony Giovannetti, plus sophomore Matt Abelowitz, the lineup was essentially a question mark.
And while Ewing bowling history tells us we shouldn’t be surprised that the boys finished the regular season 14-0, its best finish since the 2007-08 state title runs, they were still a little shocked towards the beginning as the wins kept racking up.
Albert Doleatip, Justin Hammond and John Zaggi filled out the rest of the lineup, and the inconsistency of last year was gone.
The sqaud won its third straight Central Jersey Group II sectional title on Feb. 14 with an overall score of 3,421, a tournament high out of 37 teams. Ewing also captured the Burlington County Scholastic League Liberty Division championship.
“That would have made a lot of work for us, making up for the two lower guys,” Giovanneti said. “But these guys have stepped up. They’re here averaging 200, 210. I would have never expected that. Just last year, some of them were on the JV practice squad, 150, 160 average.”
The boys attribute the turnaround to a change in the team’s philsophy. Rather than bowling for egos and individual stats like some had done in the past, they’re throwing with the team in mind.
“I think we were able to take a team that looked like it was going to be nothing and turn it into something great,” Giovannetti said. “There’s more of a team chemistry. We’re all about winning now, whereas in past years, it was always a battle to see who was going to be in those varsity spots. There’s more of a team element to it.”
Focusing too much on your own game, he added, is the worst thing a bowler on a team can do.
“I know even when I’m bowling bad or even if one of these guys is bowling bad, you got to still give this guy a high five, you got to still congratulate him,” he said. “You know that if he doesn’t get the next five strikes, you can make up for the 150 you just bowled.”
As Abelowitz said, it’s all about “friendly competition.”
“You kind of want to stay with them,” he said. “It’s friendly. It’s not really malevolent. We realized we worked more as a team when we’re working as one.”
That doesn’t mean the win streak went without its close calls.
The boys recalled a match against Medford Tech towards the end of the regular season where they had to claw back from losing the first game by nearly 200 pins, something they didn’t think they’d have to do. Ewing won the second game by 65 pins and ended up winning the overall match by 12.
“I know personally, I couldn’t find anything,” Giovannetti said. “I was struggling all day long. Marc was able to get lined up, Justin, too. Everybody worked together. Somebody had a big game, somebody had a low game. It evened itself out.”
Hammond and Doleatip have been Ewing’s secret weapons this year. Hammond, a former basketball player, switched to bowling this year after hoops lost its luster.
Joining the team was a little intimidating at first.
“The first two matches we had, Marc bowled 279 back-to-back,” Hammond said. “That just made me scared to bowl. It was really cool.”
Doleatip had his off days last year, but working with his brother—and former EHS bowler Dario Doleatip—in the offseason made him more consistent.
“He showed me little improvements I should have done,” he said.
And they worked: he bowled a 299 at one point this season, one agonizing pin away from a perfect 300.
Trabosh said the squad’s skill has roots in youth programs at the local alleys and middle school.
“To start out, Fisher Middle School has a bowling club, so you can see what up and coming people are coming up for the team,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons why we’re always so good.”
Tucker, though, said the prominence and quality of youth leagues dates back even further.
“We are a relatively small town with two decent-sized bowling alleys,” he said. “You’ve got to go back even before they were born. Ewing was a General Motors town. They had a big contingent of GM workers. Basically, you worked on the assembly line. Afterwards, you had beverages and you bowled. There was that mentality, that blue collar, lunch pail guy. And now leagues are all over the place.”
No matter the source, it’s clear that bowling is one of Ewing High School’s most consistently successful athletic programs, even if it might fly under the radar compared to basketball, baseball and soccer.
Though it’s not as physical as other varsity sports, the athletes exert just as much effort, and there’s a good deal of, if not more, strategy involved.
“People say, ‘Bowling is nothing,’” Tucker said. “Really? Try to do what these guys do. Do a consistent 200 average, and see how difficult that is to replicate over a season.”
“Even in the leagues, there’s a ton of people that can’t break 100 or 150,” he said. “There’s a small percentage that’s 200 and above. Even the pros are at 235. These guys aren’t far off the mark from that.”
And this year’s squad hopes to capitalize on its skill. With the sectional title captured, they have state and Tournament of Champions titles on the brain.
The four state champions face off every year in the ToC, but every year Ewing has advanced, the squad has never made it past the first round.
“We always make a quick exit,” Tucker said. “It would be nice to hang out. Then, there’s the Group IV schools with the big, big enrollment. We got the stuff, I think, this year, if everybody’s on their game.”
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