SOUTH BRUNSWICK: Viking girls are Queens of the County

Bowling team wins GMCT championshp for first time

By Rich Fisher, Sports Editor
   If they didn’t do it this year, with this team, who’s to say they ever would have done it?
   Fortunately, that is a not a question that need be asked.
   They did it, and quite convincingly.
   The Lady Vikings became the first girls bowling team in South Brunswick High School history to win the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament championship when they defeated Carteret in two straight games last Wednesday.
   The Vikings won by scores of 1,001-983 and 983-841. Carly Kohutanycz led the way with a 246-182/428, followed by Kayleigh Kimberlin (202-204/406), Jackie Sutton (211), Justine Bleacher (214-163/377), Marissa Rodriguez (198) and Allison Zimmitti (203-164/367).
   ”We did a really good job, we just came out really strong,” coach Tara Burniston said. “We had the confidence, we had the drive. They wanted it really bad.
   ”They had a great season and they wanted this to be the topper. We bowled well; they bowled well too. We knew if we let down at all we’d be in trouble.”
   What made the win impressive is that the Vikings had to perform under several levels of pressure. The first was the obvious tension of playing for a championship. The second was doing it against a GMC dynasty that had been there before, and the third was the run the Ramblers began to make in game two.
   ”Carteret came out strong in the second game and started with a lot of strikes,” Burniston said. “We just wanted to make sure we got our marks and not let the pressure get to us. Little by little we began to catch up.
   ”When they began to pull out a little bit, we had a little powwow. We said, ‘If you want it, it’s yours, we just have to take it.’”
   The key was not being blinded by the dazzling frames Carteret produced in the early going. That can often be a mental roadblock as the other team starts to figure “Why bother?”
   Not this team.
   ”We had to make sure their really good start didn’t affect us,” Burniston said. “We had to make sure it was our game and go from there, and the girls kicked it up a notch and said, ‘We’ve come too far not to win this.’ So we said, ‘OK, go for it.’
   ”They didn’t lose their cool or succumb to the pressure of the other team bowling well. We just kept sparing them to death. We’d have spare, spare, spare and then everyone caught fire. In the last game we had everyone above 182, so you’re in pretty good shape when that’s your lowest score.”
   Despite vanquishing the Ramblers and beating them for the second time this season, Burniston remained humble in victory.
   ”To be playing them was a privilege,” she said. “It was great for the girls to be bowling such a good team. And for us to come out as strong as we did in that first game really was big.”
   Even bigger is the fact that this is a team built for a repeat performance, as the top four bowlers are underclassmen.
   But not to be forgotten is the lone senior in the starting lineup. Rodriguez can always say she went out as a champion.
   ”She’s been very emotional the past couple of wins,” Burniston said with a laugh. “We were always joking about when she would start crying again.”
   But the players were all happy for their leader.
   ”She was captain, not really for her average but for her ability to be able to help glue us together and to try to be that support for everyone else,” Burniston said. “She lived up to that.
   ”Marissa started bowling her first year on the JV, and had to work her way up to varsity. She’s able to be on both sides of the fence in terms of not really bowling in big tournaments the first year, to the last couple years being a standard person in those situations. So she could relate to everybody on the team.”
   After beating Carteret, they all related to one thing — being champions.