Girls Preparatory School had a dominant semifinal round in the TSSAA Division II girls’ individual state tournament Thursday at the Smyrna Bowling Center, with four of the top seven scores.
Three of the Bruisers roll this morning in the six-girl individual finals, and GPS senior Taylor Battle is assured of no less than a second-place finish. She led all the Division II girls Thursday with a 168, while teammates Alyson Parris and Angela Bonds were fourth and sixth at 156.25 and 149.5 and also advanced. The Bruisers’ Taylor Reid was seventh at 147.75.
The other finalists are Caroline Conrad and Megan Wilson of St. Agnes and top season qualifier Nicole Harty of team favorite St. Benedict.
Bonds will open the finals with a head-to-head match against Wilson, and that winner will face Parris. That winner takes on Harty, with Conrad next on the wait list and Battle set for the championship roll-off.
GPS had the individual champion in 2012, Kara Maynord, and the 2013 runner-up, Sara Griffith.
The Chattanooga area’s only other individual finalist this year is Central’s Reggie Long in Division I boys. The Division I qualifiers had two rounds Thursday, and Long had a sixth-best 204.5 in the quarterfinals and a third-place 199.75 in the semifinals.
Stone Memorial’s Haley Crabtree just missed making the Division I girls’ finals with an eighth-place 171.25.
“This is the first time we’ve ever had three players in the final day of singles,” GPS coach David McGowan said. “The girls were phenomenal this morning. They did a good job of keeping the ball around the head pin and making spares, and that was on an extremely tough sport (oil) pattern.
“Battle bowled really well. She got off to a quick start with a 202 game, and she had a 189 third game. And Alyson might have been the most consistent girl in the field. Angela was very consistent, too.”
GPS (14-4) is seeded fourth in team play after Thursday’s Baker matches and opens at 11 CST this morning against Pope John Paul II (15-1). Top seed St. Agnes (10-3) is in the same half of the bracket. Walker Valley’s Lady Mustangs (25-0) meet Columbia Central (23-2) in the Division I tournament.
McCallie (15-3) in Division II and McMinn County’s boys (20-4) in Division I also are seeded fourth and face Ensworth (11-5) and Sevier County (20-1), respectively, this afternoon.
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