BATON ROUGE - I am happy to finally get to tell you a bit about the four newest members of the Baton Rouge Bowling Association’s Hall of Fame who were announced and presented their awards late last month at the annual association meeting.

Michael Baham, Robbie Blackwell, Mark Saale and Sarah Broussard were inducted this year and in these types of things there are a lot of intangibles. There are a lot of numbers which we will give you some of them below, but I think you have to also consider the person and all four of these have a reputation as outstanding bowlers and people that have supported the sport in many different ways.

Baham is a two-time state singles champion back in 2012 and 2013 with a 230 top average, 15 300 games and multiple 800 sets.

Saale has nine 300 games to his credit with five 800 sets with a best average of 221. He’s had nine games of 11 strikes in a row. He has had five seasons with at least a 220 average.

Blackwell and Broussard were stars in the area from back in their junior league days with multiple city, state and regional tournament honors to their credit. Broussard was a part of the run of four state championships won by the Denham Springs girls’ team as high school bowling was getting its start by the LHSAA back in the mid-2000s.

Blackwell has 25 perfect 300 games with eight 800 sets and a best average of 231, with 14 seasons of averaging 220 or better in his career.

Broussard has had 10 300 games, one 800 (which I believe has only happened twice by a Baton Rouge female) with 15 averages of 220 in her career and 700 sets too numerous to mention. She recently posted a 700 in singles in the USBC Women’s Championship.

Four great new members to the Hall of Fame. Congratulations to all.

Adult-Youth State Championship

For years the state bowling proprietors have done a great job with this event and kept it going strong even after the national group decided to move away from this event.

Marc Pater is stepping down as the executive director of the state bowling proprietors and this was his 39th and final family event as tournament director. This year’s event at Colonial Lanes in Harahan drew 164 entries and offered some $4,400 in scholarship money. The division winners also received two new bowling balls from Performance Plus Pro Shop, Mr. Ric Boudreaux, Ebonite and the state proprietors’ group.

In the U18 division, Sebastian and Patrick Sonnier of Acadiana Lanes was the winner with Premiere Lanes’ Preston Kitchen and Cade Murphy in second.

The U15 division title was won by Carter Sandridge and Jeremy Trahan from Acadiana over Jordan and Karen Beam from Premier Lanes.

Two Baton Rouge association teams were tops in the U12 division with Adley and Mark Pendergraft of All Star Lanes on top with second place going to Avianna Flores and Karen Beam, representing Premier Lanes in Gonzales.

Congrats to all the winners and to Pater on the tremendous job he has done with the state proprietors and this tournament in particular.

Reporter’s Notes

So much is happening and next Monday we will get back to updating the USBC Open which continues to roll with some great scores, especially in the doubles and singles. Also, big scores continue to come at All Star in the Bowlers Journal event.

How about Butch Cormier of Lafayette for going T7 in the USBC Senior Masters this past weekend out in Las Vegas. Cormier qualified for the 64-player bracket and went 4-2 in match play before being eliminated. He walked away with a check for $3,700. Tom Daugherty was the eventual tournament winner, defeating Parker Bohn III in the championship match.

In the U.S. High School Bowling National Championship in Fort Wayne, Indiana, two-time defending Division II boys/coed state champion Archbishop Shaw finished seventh in the team competition.

The Eagles qualified 11th in the field of 55 boys’ team in a format that includes two traditional games and six Baker games. After the field was cut to 25 for the first elimination block of three Baker games, Shaw moved up to seventh where they would finish. It was an eight-spot improvement for their 15th place finish in 2024 and they joined Brother Martin boys (2019) and 2023 Dutchtown girls as the only state teams to reach the final eight in the team event.

Slidell and Jesuit each made the first cut with Slidell finishing 17th and Jesuit 24th.

Finally, condolences to all of Fred Taylor’s family members after the longtime bowler passed away recently. There was a Facebook post with a wonderful salute to Mr. Taylor from his family requesting that in lieu of flowers, that donations could be given to the local Bayou Senate of TNBA and the money would be used for scholarships for youth bowlers.

We’ll be back next Monday. Until then, good luck and good bowling,

     Kent Lowe