WEST MILFORD - The Highlander Varsity Bowling Team ended up in fifth place out of 40 teams in the State Championships on Feb. 14.
The team just missed the first round cut by about 40 pins to move on in the next round of the top four teams statewide.
Due to the winter weather last week, the NJSIAA Bowling Championship was moved to Thursday, Feb. 14.
The Highlanders packed up early and left the high school at 7:15 a.m. to head to the Bowlero in North Brunswick to compete.
There were 40 teams competing broken up into four groups of 10, with the top team scoring the most total pins in each group moving on to the finals.
The varsity bowlers for the Highlanders were Amanda Finke, Colin Goldberg, Mikey Nicholas, Shane Yodice, RJ Utter, and Tyler Nicol.
Finke bowled the first two games scoring a 183 and a 134.
Goldberg came in for the third game bowling a 240.
Nicholas shot a 174, 182, and a 203.
Yodice bowled a 188, 178, and a 167.
Utter bowled well putting up a 226, a 224, and a 213.
Nicol, bowling his last finals as a senior, rolled a 166, a 204, and a 177.
Goldberg’s 240 in the last game helped the team pull ahead of Woodbridge to take a brief lead on reigning Tournament of Champions winner.
As a team, West Milford scored a total of 2,856 pins, however, it was not enough to pull ahead of Woodbridge for long.
The reigning division champs finished shortly after the Highlanders scoring a total of 2,900 pins, besting West Milford’s 2,856.
Although the West Milford bowlers were not able to make the cut, the total pin count placed them in fifth place overall out of all 40 teams.
RJ Utter also qualified through the state sectionals to compete individually at state tournament the next day and finished in 16th place out of 76 individual bowlers.