UNIVERSITY PLACE –The entire alley halted to for Kerissa Andersen’s final roll on Thursday afternoon. Tears started to flow. A few frames earlier, she learned she’d solidified the 3A individual state bowling title.
But her final roll, an emphatic strike, was the exclamation mark.
After the applause died down and she collected herself, the Evergreen senior and now-two-time state champion looked to the gallery at Narrows Plaza Bowl.
“Where’s my dad?”
He was the person she most wanted to share the moment with.
“This sport is what we have in common,” Andersen said. “Winning makes him proud and I just wanted to make him proud. I was raised in a bowling alley.”
And there was plenty to celebrate. Andersen bowled a 1,271 over six games — a 212 average — for a 102-pin victory. Evergreen senior Dakota O’Neil finished finished second with 1,169 overall.
To Andersen and O’Neil, the individual performance was a fitting crescendo to their fourth time competing at state in four years in Evergreen’s program.
Evergreen, the two-time defending 3A state team champion, leads the team standings with 5,489 pins. Freshman Kailee Wilcox was 14th (1,038).
Prairie sits in second place as a team with 5,154 pins. Its top-three bowlers — Lauren Hapgood (1,053), Sam Longchamp (1,052) and Elissa St. Julian (1,049) — finished 11-13th overall in Thursday’s individual results.
Fort Vancouver’s Rose Ugbinada was ninth (1,061).
Andersen won the 3A state title in 2017, her sophomore year, with a 1,190 overall. Her junior year, she finished seventh.
All season she has been determined to get back to state and reclaim her individual title. She wanted to prove she had what it took to win again.
“I’m not a one-time person,” Andersen said. “I can come up and show them again. My main thing is it’s my senior year. I wanted to show people I have talent and I can show it off.”
It’s a message Andersen has echoed to Evergreen coach Robin Bailey all season. She felt a renewed motivation, too, after finishing third in the district tournament last Friday. On Thursday before the tournament started, she said it again.
“She came in this morning and said, ‘I want that first place,’ ” Bailey said, “and I said, ‘take it.’ ”
But it didn’t come without a little adversity. Anderson bowled the last five frames of the sixth game without feeling in a finger in her dominant hand. Andersen said she isn’t sure exactly what happened, but a few layers of skin tore off on one of her rolls. She ran over to Bailey, who patched it together.
“It was weird, because I like feeling my ball, and I couldn’t feel my ball,” Andersen said.
O’Neil’s second-place finish came after a late push. When the teams broke for lunch, she was outside of the top-10 — and beneath her own expectations.
In the fourth game she rolled a 233, one of the top individual games of the day. She jumped to fourth. Then in the final game, she started with six consecutive strikes and finished with a 237, good enough to leapfrog into second.
O’Neil missed three weeks of the regular season with a tweaked back. There were times she feared she might miss the entire season, which made Wednesday that much more special.
“I didn’t think I was going to jump that high, definitely did not think I was going to place second,” O’Neil said.
Going into Friday morning’s team final (baker games start at 8 a.m.), Evergreen has a 335-pin lead on first place after bowling a 915-pin average across six games Thursday.
Andersen was the final competitor to bowl at the alley on Thursday. The moment started to hit her after her first roll in the last frame. She turned to O’Neil, and the two embraced. It had been four years in the making.
“She’s been one of my best friends since freshman year,” O’Neil said. “I said then, ‘when we’re seniors, we’re going to win this, me and you.’ And we just did.”
3A STATE BOWLING TOURNAMENT
Individual final, day one
At Narrows Plaza in University Place
TOP 5 INDIVIDUALS — 1, Kerissa Anderson (Evergreen), 1271 (239-165-192-224-235-216); 2. Dakota O’Neil (Evergreen), 1169 (170-178-171-233-180-237); 3. Nikita Benton (Lakes), 1155 (170-178-171-233-180-237); 4. Nicole Omlor (Southridge), 1094 (168-192-165-210-178-181); 5. Carly Woods (Ferndale), 1092 (189-169-216-170-191-157).
*locals in bold
LOCALS — 9. Rose Ugbinada (Fort Vancouver), 1061 (188-155-168-138-189-223); 11. Lauren Hapgood (Prairie), 1053 (174-151-184-162-184-198); 12. Sam Longchamp (Prairie), 1052 (164-232-144-200-146-166); 13. Elissa St. Julian (Prairie), 1049 (233-181-135-159-173-168); 14. Kailee Wilcox (Evergreen), 1038 (157-192-202-141-203-143); 19. Teryn Stine (Evergreen), 1009 (154-141-193-180-160-181); 21. Karina Johnsen (Evergreen), 1002 (172-143-163-215-158-151); T21. Lilly Bash (Prairie), 1002 (150-172-150-187-195-148); 23. Anna Gatlin (Prairie), 998 (150-156-154-152-183-203); 31. McKenna Ellen (Fort Vancouver), 961 (130-182-188-184-158-119); 41. Lauren Johnson (Mountain View), 885 (162-153-133-131-169-137); 43. Sierrah Kienitz (Mountain View), 881 (160-118-160-106-174-163).
