IESA Headlines

2014 IESA Bowling State Tournament Begins This Friday

Students from 51 Illinois Elementary School Association (IESA) member schools will compete in the fourth annual Bowling State Tournament at Town and Country Lanes in Joliet on April 4 & 5. There will be over 250 students who will compete in the event this weekend. A complete listing of the participating students is located on the IESA website at:

http://www.iesa.org/activities/bo/lanes.asp?Year=2014

The IESA Bowling State Tournament will serve as the largest known Scratch Varsity Middle School event in the country.

The tournament consists of a boys and girls division. All participants will compete in the preliminary round on Friday and will each bowl four games. New in 2014, the qualifying field following the preliminaries on Friday has increased to 64 in each division. The field of 64 will be comprised of the tournament’s top eight teams (four bowlers per team) and the top 32 individual bowlers not associated with a team entering Saturday. Results will be available immediately on www.iesa.org after the completion of each round. The finals will consist of two rounds of three games each and the awards will be given based on the 10-game combined total. All schools will be eligible for team awards, with the top three teams receiving trophies. The total cumulative pinfall throughout the entire tournament will be counted for each school participating in the boys and girls divisions.

The preliminary round on Friday is scheduled to begin at 9:15 a.m. for the boys and 1:45 p.m. for the girls. On Saturday, round two (Finals) will begin at 9:45 a.m., with the third round (Finals) scheduled to begin 45 minutes following the completion of round two. The awards ceremony will take place at approximately 3 p.m. or after the last round has been completed on Saturday. The complete tournament schedule is located on the IESA website at:

http://www.iesa.org/activities/bo/IESA-BO_Schedule.pdf

Complete tournament information, plus the FanZone can be found at www.iesa.org. Click on the Bowling line at the top of the IESA website home page

Should weather become a factor, the IESA website will contain up-to-date information regarding the tournament playing schedule. Go to www.iesa.org.

The price of admission Friday is $5.00 for adults and $2.00 for seniors (62 and over) and students (K-8) and is good for all day Friday. Children younger than kindergarten are admitted free. The price of admission for the session Saturday will be $7.00 for adults and $3.00 for seniors and students (K-8). Children younger than kindergarten again are admitted free.

With both the 2013 Boys and Girls Individual Champions capturing gold as eighth graders, 2014 will see new winners crowned in each division. Two names to keep an eye on in the girls division are seventh grader Emma Koch from Minooka JHS as well as eighth grader Stephanie Richards of Loves Park Harlem. These two ladies are the lone tournament returnees from a year ago who each placed within the top 10 (Koch 7th, Richards 8th). As for the boys division, none of the individuals who placed within the top 10 in 2013 are returning for this year's tournament. After taking home the inaugural first place team trophies in 2013, both the Minooka Indians (Boys) and the Loves Park Harlem Huskies (Girls) return in 2014 with full squads hoping to duplicate last year's tournament success.

For more information, please contact IESA Associate Executive Director and Bowling Administrator Nicole Schaefbauer at nicole@iesa.org.