Madison High School Bowling Grabs Tight Victory

The Madison and Chatham High School bowling teams squared off on Tuesday, hoping to turn around their seasons by garnering as many points as possible. In a close match that came down to Game 3, Madison earned a 5-2 victory.

In the Northwest Jersey Athletic conference, wins and losses do not matter as much as point totals. Each match has three games. Each game is worth two points, and an additional point is awarded to the team who has the highest score for all three games combined. So far this year, Chatham has been outscored 41-22, while Madison has been outscored 46-17.

The last time Chatham and Madison faced one another, Chatham swept the match, earning seven points total to Madison's 0.

Madison's star bowler, Jason Maulbeck, thought that the match against Chatham would be a close one this time.

"We should be about even," Maulbeck said. "The first time we faced them we lost, but we shouldn't be too far apart from each other."

So far this season, Maulbeck has the highest individual average in the entire league, as well as the highest series score and the second highest single game score. His average this year is 221, while his highest series score (out of 900 total) is 804. The second highest average is 212 and the second highest series score is 730. Maulbeck has 16 games over 200, and six series over 600, while the highest on Chatham is three games over 200 and no series over 600.

But Chatham has shown more depth over the season, and because the points are awarded for the entire team's score every game, they have had more success this year.

In the first game, Maulbeck had the highest score of either team with 226. Tommy Devito had the highest score for Chatham, with 178. Madison won the first game, outscoring Chatham by a mere 12 pins, 782-770, earning them the first 2 points of the day.

After eight frames in the second game, Maulbeck had four spares and four strikes. In the ninth frame, he hit another strike. His first throw of the tenth frame was a strike. So was his second. He finished off the game with one more, bringing his total score to 237, but it was not enough to overtake Chatham in the second game.

Andrew Halterman of Chatham scored 201, and the rest of his team combined made up for Maulbeck's surplus, bringing Chatham up 799-785 in the second game. Both teams had now earned two points each in the match going into the third game. Chatham was up for the total score as well, with the sum of Games 1 and 2 being 1,569 for Chatham and 1,567 for Madison.

Maulbeck threw seven straight strikes at the end of Game 3, earning a final score of 233. Senior Lance Carrier had Madison's second highest score in the third game, with 183. Carrier and Maulbeck carried their team to a win, earning two points for the game and an additional point for the entire team score of the day. Madison outscored Chatham 884-799 in Game 3, making the final score 2,451 – 2,368 Madison, and earning five total points for the match.

Madison has now earned 22 points this year, while giving up 48.