Vikings stun bowling world by winning boys GMC Tournament

Seeded 11th, SBHS tops Edison in championship round

By: Tyler Dey
   Already an unlikely finalist, the South Brunswick High School boys bowling team is now an unlikely champion.
   The Vikings capped a remarkable run and rolled their way to the Greater Middlesex Conference Team Tournament title Wednesday night. The tournament’s 11th seed with a 6-11-1 regular-season mark in the GMC Red Division, South Brunswick defeated fifth-seeded Edison 2-1 to claim the championship at Brunswick Zone Carolier Lanes in North Brunswick.
   When asked if she had seen her team bowl that well, Burniston said: "Not all together, no. They all had potential, but now they were all on at the same time."
   "I think it all came down to the fact that nobody had any faith they could get that far," Burniston added. "Now they believed that they could do it."
   The win was the fourth straight for South Brunswick, all coming in the tournament. The second-game loss to Edison Wednesday was the first the Vikings dropped in the four-round, best-of-3 bracket, but it proved to be trivial when they won the final game. The Vikings built up to this final and offered perhaps their best performance of the season in their biggest moment.
   Four bowlers – Robby Kohutanycz (653), Ben Bleacher (624), Corey Weiss (601) and Ross Winiarz (627) – posted 600-plus three-game series for South Brunswick and all six posted at least one 200-plus game. Five of the six put up two 200-plus games (a total of 11).
   By comparison, Edison had six 200-plus games and two bowlers with a 600-plus series.
   The Vikings easily took the first game of the contest 1,010-865. Kohutanycz was the catalyst, putting up a 226. Edison bounced back in the second game, taking it 1,094-1,033. The rubber match was all South Brunswick, with the Vikings putting up 1,079 to Edison’s 973. Kohutanycz rolled the match’s high game, 245, and was backed up by Orchard (211) Bleacher (224), and Winiarz (214) in the third game.
   The Vikings split their two regular-season meetings with the Eagles, a fact coach Tara Burniston said gave her team confidence going into the final.
   "Because we had beaten Edison, we knew that they weren’t this machine-like
team that couldn’t be beat."
   Entering the tournament, teams might have been forgiven for overlooking the Vikings, who finished seventh in Red Division.
   But the start of the GMC Tournament sounded the start of the turnaround for South Brunswick’s boys. The team dropped its final regular-season match, a 4-0 decision to St. Joseph and hasn’t lost since. The Vikings have beaten Bishop Ahr (2-0 on Feb. 4), John F. Kennedy (2-0, Feb. 6), Carteret (2-0, Monday) and now Edison in the tournament.