Distressed looks flitted from face to face as the mistakes piled up and the match slipped away. Frustrated yells, angry shirt yanks and exasperated glances became Westfield’s refrain in Tuesday’s 5–2 loss to Scotch Plains-Fanwood.
The Raiders surged ahead in the third game to claim the match, which contained a total wood margin of 2932–2809. Westfield recovered to win the second game after SPF’s thunderous first-game victory, but the Blue Devils fell short in the third and dropped to 1-1 on the young season.
The gaggle of Scotch Plains bowlers roared after every strike, their jubilation mounting as they built a sizable buffer. The roars crescendoed in the seventh frame and then dropped a few decibels, becoming victorious shouts of impending victory rather than fierce screams of tight combat.
Westfield, by comparison, was flat, the players turning inwards to mentally berate themselves. Early in the third game, head coach Ralph Corey stood up to deliver a harsh awakening. “Stop feeling sorry for yourselves and get going,” he yelled down to his bowlers. But his galvanizing words failed to affect his struggling team, and Westfield faded to an 807 in the decisive third game.
Corey didn’t mince words after the match. “There’s some scores here that are just not varsity level,” he said. “The lanes were really dry, but that’s no excuse. [SPF was] bowling in the same conditions. It just came down to not performing. It’s all about sustaining, and we’re trying to find that level right now.”
The match begged for that extra element, an intangible touch that would lock Westfield into gear. But it never arrived. Nine pins often toppled, only for the 10th to stand, transfixed. Attempted spare pickups flashed by. The little mistakes piled up.
The story was different on the other side. Westfield struggled to pick up spares; Scotch Plains left nary an open frame. Westfield struggled to muster energy; Scotch Plains brimmed with it.
“When somebody’s down, they know to pick them up,” said SPF head coach Ryan Goracy of his bowlers. “They know not to get themselves down too much, too. So they want to try to keep things positive out there and not focus on the negatives.”
Corey seemed desperate to impart the same message on his team. “We’re certainly going to have to talk about the mentality moving forward about never giving up on a game,” he said, bluntly.
Westfield’s third-game collapse came as a surprise after a solid second game that put the Blue Devils and the Raiders on level terms. The nervous tension of the first game dissipated early in the second. Smiles appeared. Westfield loosened up.
Balls ripped down the two lanes, smashing into pins. Strikes littered the scoreboard on both sides. The rhythm of the game was unceasing, uncompromising. Scotch Plains, shorn of its first-game brilliance, trundled behind its opponent. Westfield won the game, 981-902.
So up came the decisive third game, and down went Westfield.
The Blue Devils tried to claw their way back. But SPF kept drilling strikes and picking up spares, and the match slipped away. The Raiders took the third game, 957–807, and the first game, 1073–1021.
“Westfield’s a great team,” Goracy said. “It’s hard to be consistent. Sometimes you throw a great shot and you have a bad break, bad luck. Sometimes it’s just the way the pins fall.”
Westfield bowlers posted a couple of dazzling individual games, despite the overall dreariness. Senior co-captain and anchor Perry Cuccaro opened with a 280. Senior co-captain Gabe Dayon bowled a 256 in his second game, rolling strikes in the first six frames before a solitary pin refused to budge in the seventh frame.
Dayon’s post-mortem was simple. “[In the] third game, people started losing focus. We started losing focus on ourselves, and that cost us.”
After he’d finished answering a reporter’s final question, Dayon hesitated. He asked, tentatively, if he could say one more thing. He was told that, yes, he could. His voice, somber and wavering, strengthened.
“Before the next Scotch Plains game,” he said, “we’ll run the table.”
Article by Michael Liebermann
Twitter video and additional reporting by Ryan Pisarra
