A total of 146 boys and girls bowlers took the lanes at Bowler City in Hackensack on Saturday to compete in the fourth annual Co-Ed Classic.
When the dust settled heading into the finals, Mahwah’s Elias Chi (boys) and Hackensack’s Aaliyah Vasquez (girls) each stood tall as respective champions of their gender.
In the championship match, Chi edged out Vasquez, 205-186, to win the overall championship at this year’s event.
All bowlers competing in the tournament participated in three traditional games during the qualifying round.
The top 20 boys and top 16 girls from those first three games advanced to the second round to roll two more games.
The top four totals from each gender in the second round advanced to stepladder portion of the tournament.
Chi tallied a three-game set of 542 to qualify for the second round, where he rolled back-to-back games of 211 and 188 for a five-game total of 1,251 to earn the two-seed in the stepladder bracket.
The senior defeated Bergen Tech’s Sebastian Bray, 199-190, to reach the boys finals, where he would face off against Jason Hwang of Bergen Tech.
Chi topped Hwang, 205-186, in the finals to win the boys title.
On the girls side, Vasquez earned the top-seed heading into the stepladder bracket with a total of 1,235 pins through her first five traditional games.
Vasquez took on Holy Angels’ Nina Petrou in the finals, where she recorded a 178-162 victory to win the girls title.
Notable performances from this year’s tournament saw Bergen Tech junior Collin Zens tally a high series of 717 through the first three games of the qualifying round. Dumont’s Brayden McQuade rolled a high game of 278 during the tournament.
Holy Angels senior Kaitlyn Zheng led all female participants with a high game of 247 and a high series of 650 during the first three traditional games of the qualifying round.
The tournament helps raise money toward a scholarship that will be given to both a boys bowler and a girls bowler who send in an essay of 500 words or less about how bowling or any high school sport they’ve played has affected their life in a positive way.
This year’s recipients will receive a $200 scholarship.
There was also $1,500 in gift cards for the Bowler City Pro Shop given out at random to 25 bowlers that competed in the tournament.
