Phil Macchietto leads Mineola to Nassau bowling title
Mineola's Phil Macchietto likes his strike at the Nassau County boys and girls team championships in Garden City on Saturday. Credit: Peter Frutkoff
Phil Macchietto and Mineola had a plan Saturday morning at the Nassau boys bowling team championships.
Get ahead, stay ahead.
"For the first three games we wanted to be in the lead so everyone else was chasing us and we didn’t have to chase," Macchietto said. "We bowled great in the beginning and flew away with it the last three games."
The junior rolled a high game of 255 in Game 4 of a 1,278 six-game series at AMF Garden City Lanes to lead Mineola to its first boys bowling county championship in school history. The Mustangs placed first in Division I with a six-game total of 5,983. Wantagh finished second (5,651) and Sewanhaka was third (5,635).
Jason Martinez rolled a 232 in Game 4 of a 1,201 series, Tom Catania had a 238 in Game 3, Billy Grotheer threw a 216 in Game 3 and Nick Schneider had a 220 in Game 6 for Mineola.
The Mustangs led MacArthur by 151 pins following the first three games and put its foot on the gas for the remaining three.
"I have made the state all-star team as an individual every year since seventh grade, so I know what that’s like," Macchietto said. "But it feels even better to accomplish this with my teammates."
AJ Henriques, the Mustangs’ lone senior, had a high game of 205 in Game 2 of a 1,165 series.
"This is a great way for him to leave high school bowling," Macchietto said, who finished second in Nassau with a 225 average. "We had a talk amongst the team, and we said, ‘let's win this thing for AJ’, and that’s what we did."
The Seaford boys continued their dominance by winning a fourth consecutive Division II title. The Vikings had a six-game total of 5,911 and finished with the second-best score of all the 16 Division I and Division II teams in attendance.
Joe Ledesky began Game 4 with 10 straight strikes and finished with a 284, the highest game of the championship. He had a six-game series of 1,352. Jason Donovan had a 247 in Game 1 and a 221 in Game 2 and Pete Weber tossed a 236 in Game 3 and a 242 in Game 4.
The Vikings began their program five years ago and had five seniors competing. Ledesky and Joey Gallagher have been there since the program’s existence.
"Since there’s no states it’s really a shot to the heart. We’ve been thinking about our senior year for so long and thought this would be our chance to win a state title," Gallagher said. "It’s crazy everything that happened throughout the last year, from us being on the bus headed to states, to turning around and coming back home… I’m just glad I had the chance to bowl again, one final time."
