Smithtown beats Sachem by two pins to win Suffolk bowling title
Kyle Perillo from Smithtown at the Suffolk bowling individual championships at Sayville Lanes on Saturday. Credit: Pablo Garcia Corradi
Two pins.
That was the margin of victory that separated the top two teams at the Suffolk boys bowling team championship Saturday after six games.
Smithtown totaled 1,032 pins in Game 6 to outlast Sachem, 6,352-6,350, at Bowlero Sayville and claim its first county title since 1994. Comsewogue finished 12 pins behind Smithtown with a total of 6,340 and Longwood placed fourth (6,309).
"I still haven’t processed everything yet," Smithtown coach Rob Aplin said. "For them to grind it out and do what they did is remarkable."
Kyle Perillo had a high game of 279 in Game 5 of a 1,472 six-game series, Joshua Bholan added a 247 in Game 1 of a 1,245 series, Joshua Holcomb rolled a 246 in Game 2 of a 1,242 series and Tim Schiraldi bowled a 238 in Game 2 of a 1,209 series. Perillo also had games of 237, 206, 235, 269 and 246.
"This is my sixth year on this team," said Perillo, a senior. "Five years in a row we have been so close, but haven’t been able to come out on top. This year we got it."
Smithtown concluded the regular season with a 15-1 record and had the highest pin total (50,869) of any team in Suffolk. The team sat in fourth place after Game 5 and trailed first-place Longwood by 57 pins.
"Everyone seemed to find their groove in the last game, and it was enough," Bholan said. "One spare or one miss could have changed things completely. It’s really mind-boggling that’s what it came down to."
West Islip’s Tim Smith, who set the state record for both the most 300 games in a season (4) and highest average (251.31), will lead a group of six Section XI All-Stars that will compete as a team in the state championship on Saturday, Mar. 12 at AMF Strike-N-Spare Lanes in Syracuse. Smith will be joined by Matthew Sundberg (East Islip), Nick Walker (Sachem), Kieran Carney (Commack), Seth Knipe (Longwood) and Stephen Russell (Central Islip).
Smithtown will represent Section XI in the state’s Division I team tournament on Sunday, March 13.
"Going into this season we kept saying that this was going to be our year. That doesn’t change going up to states," Bholan said. "This is our year, and this isn’t the end."
