BATON ROUGE - Annie Laurence of host All Star Lanes joined the illustrious list of winners Sunday, capturing the U18 girls title in an exciting final match in the 13th Capital City Strike Out youth scratch scholarship tournament.

Four champions were crowned in the two-day event, bowled over three different oil patterns. The top six from Saturday’s eight-game qualifier returned to bowl a double elimination bracket to share in nearly $4,500 in scholarship money. That brings the scholarship money offered over the years to well over $50,000. 

Laurence didn’t have much trouble with the No. 1 seed jinx that seemed to follow top qualifying seeds in some divisions in recent years as she rolled identical two-game sets of 416 (208 average) to advance to the bracket final against No. 3 seed Addison Tran, representing Westlake Lanes in Harvey.

Tran finished strong to score a 374-372 win over Laurence to force the deciding match in the division. The first game was up for grabs before Laurence scored a 204-190 decision and she was able to hold that advantage and end up with a 429-385 title winning score. 

Laurence won a $440 scholarship, while Tran took $275 for second. Sixth seed Mia Bazajou of Tangi Lanes came through the elimination bracket to win a couple of matches and was third for $160.

It was a good weekend for the Tran family as Zander Tran, the No. 3 seed in the Boys/Girls U15 division came through in the final match with a strong two-game total of 461 to easily win the title after last year’s U15 champ, Easton Smith of Colonial Lanes in Harahan, forced the deciding match with a 424 score win over Tran.

Tran won a $380 scholarship with $265 for Smith. Kolsten Vu, representing Westside, was third for $155.

In the Boys U18 division, Porter Kauffman, the three seed, averaged over 200 in his final three matches (226.8 average) to win. He posted a 415-360 win over Luke Ackoury in his championship match. He took him $550 with Ackoury of Tangi Lanes taking $385 for second. No. 1 seed Carter Santangelo of Colonial was third, winning $250.

The future stars were shown off in the U12 division with Finn Neucere of All Star Lanes in Baton Rouge, going undefeated in the division as the No. 2 seed to win 376-322 over Lucas Derosia of Premier Lanes in Gonzales. Neucere took home $255 for first with Derosia, the No. 1 qualifier, getting $140 for second place. 

There was also a new bonus eliminator program held after the qualifying thanks to the Legacy Youth Program that put up an extra $400 for this bonus competition in which everyone entered rolled a shot and those with the most count moved on to another round and so on. In the Boys U18, Antoine Tran was the best for $120 with Jackson Thomas second ($70). Katie Giang won $100 as the one lasting the longest in the U18 division. Hannah Rawls was second ($50).

In the U15 division, Jacob Parsons took top honors for $100 with Reid Savoy ($80) the best in U12. 

Congratulations to all the folks at All Star that put on another great show this past weekend. It’s been such a Labor Day weekend tradition in Baton Rouge dating back to the old Mid-South event many decades ago at Circle Bowl.

This was a very interesting tournament because in some respects in the upper division, it was a bit of the changing of the guard and a look at some of the players that may be the names we are watching in the 2027 high school season.

These years come up every so often as bowlers age out and continue their bowling careers in college or adult leagues. It’s a time to learn new names and watch and enjoy a new group take the spotlight and shine brightly. That may have been some of what we saw this weekend. 

I won some pretty nice trophies when I was in some events like this when I was a youth bowler (like at Mid-South, but never first), but what a treat it would have been back then to win some scholarship money like is available today. It makes youth bowling scratch tournaments a much bigger deal in the modern era and that’s a good thing.

Back with you next Monday.

                 Until then, good luck and good bowling, 

                                                                         Kent Lowe