Springfield knocks down Oxbow to remain unbeaten

Springfield nailed down its second Baker final victory of the season Saturday, sweeping Oxbow in two games.

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Springfield knocks down Oxbow to remain unbeaten Windsor falls to state champions By TIM TAYLOR sports@eagletimes.com SPRINGFIELD – Springfield nailed down its second Baker final victory of the season Saturday, sweeping Oxbow in two games. The Cosmos, who drew the top seed after the individual games, topped the Olympians 134-117 and 179-157. “They bowled good,” said Springfield coach Mike Mullins. “We’re starting to jell better as a team. They’re starting to pick each other up.” In the clincher, the Cosmos came out strong at the start. Meghan Power started Springfield off with a spare and Matt Power followed with a spare. Brenden Willey and Alex Richardson followed with back-to-back strikes, and Haley St. Louis and Meghan Power continued the solid run with spares. Following Springfield’s only open frame of the game, Willey rolled a spare, Richardson a strike and St. Louis closed it out with a spare-seven. Oxbow struggled early in the game, opening in the first three frames with six, seven and eight, respectively. The Olympians would try to rally with two spares and two strikes, but opened in the eighth before adding two more strikes to finish. Springfield grabbed the early lead in the opening game of the final as well as Heather Morse, Willey and Richardson knocked down strikes in three of the first four frames. Morse, Willey and Richardson all spared their second time around. Oxbow would need a pair of strikes to start off the 10th frame in order to have a chance of winning game one, but spared. The Cosmos drew the first seed following the two-game qualifying round. “A couple of our bowlers struggled early in the seeding process, but just had a talk with them to overcome and don’t worry about making the bad shots, and just focus on the task at hand,” Mullins said. “They made some good adjustments in the [Baker] warm-up and came out ready to go. “We’ve just got to keep working on our spares to link those strikes together. You can’t have open frames. You’ve got to have spares in there.” Oxbow defeated South Royalton 148-100 and 154-103 in the Baker semifinals. Springfield’s prelimanry round scores were: Haley St. Louis 203-153; Heather Morse 122-169; Matt Power 153-105; Alex Richardson 176-193; Brenden Willey 111-175; and Meghan Power 129-145. Essex 2, Windsor 0 The Yellow Jackets earned the No. 1 seed for the second week in a row with a pin total of 1,773. Essex was a close second, rolling a 1,751, and Lyndon 3rd with a 1,162. Essex downed Lyndon in the Baker semis, then the Hornets showed their strength and why they're the defending champs, defeating Windsor 190-139 and 200-182. Katey Comstock rolled 201 and 202 in the prelimnary round while Casey Husband had the team’s high game of 212. He also rolled a 150. Tristan McMullen added 189 and 181, Brandyn LaBarron had 145 and 178 and Devon Campney chipped in with 149and 166. Windsor's JV team finally had a chance to bowl in a Baker match against Essex, The Hornets won by taken two out of three with scores of 120-109 and 125-105. Windsor won the second game 128-95. The Yellow Jackets’ JV scores were: Carlos Moncayo 160-127, Troy McCabe 114-129, Tatyana Malikowski 112-95 Elizabeth Moses 82-95 and Andrew Richmond 93-72. Windsor is off until Jan. 9 at Brattleboro.