Howell High School sophomore Alex Benton did not let the occasion get the better of him. He was nervous inside, but he remained calm outside as he started to pile up the strikes at Howell Lanes on Jan. 6.
In Howell’s match against Jackson Liberty High School, Benton was on fire, throwing one strike after another beginning in the first frame. As the streak reached seven, Benton realized he was more than halfway home to a perfect 300 game.
“I knew early that I was in a groove,” he said. “I was hitting my mark and not missing it.”
While admittedly anxious as the frames went by and he continued to throw strikes, it wasn’t until the 10th frame, he said, that he really had to control his nerves. By then, everyone at Howell Lanes was aware of what was unfolding. All of the action in the other matches had stopped.
“I started shaking,” Benton said.
Benton, whose previous high game was 267, thought his quest for a perfect game was over on his 11th strike.
“It was a Brooklyn,” he said.
A Brooklyn strike is a strike that hits the opposite side of the pocket from where it was thrown. For a right-handed bowler, this is a strike that hits the No. 1 and No. 2 pins. For lefties, the ball hits the No. 1 and No. 3 pins.
Even though his shot was not perfect, all of the pins fell and it was 11 strikes down and one to go.
“I took a deep breath and thought about hitting my mark,” Benton said of his approach to his final ball. “After I let it go I knew it was a good throw.”
Benton’s 12th shot of the game hit his mark perfectly. The ball hooked to the right side of the headpin and all of the pins went tumbling down, much to the approval of everyone who had just watched a 300 game.
“I felt I was in a dream on that last strike,” Benton said. “I always say I’m going to score a 300, but I didn’t think it would ever happen.”
Howell Coach Dave Clampffer said Benton has the type of game that can produce a rare 300.
“He’s fairly consistent,” Clampffer said. “He doesn’t get cold. He can get hot and go on a run like he did.”
Benton is only the second Howell bowler to roll a perfect game. The other person who achieved that feat is Lou DiGirolamo.
Benton has only been bowling for slightly more than two years. He got started after he broke his ankle playing basketball. He picked up bowling while recovering from that injury and stayed with it. His perfect game of Jan. 6 made him glad that he stuck with bowling.
Spurred on by Benton’s 300, Howell’s boys beat Jackson Liberty, the Shore Conference B Central Division co-leaders, 2-1.
The overall picture in the division is cloudy, with five teams within 5.5 games of each other. Howell lifted its mark 10.5-13.5 with the victory, while Liberty fell into a first place tie with Jackson Memorial with each team at 16-8. Just one game back is Manalapan at 15-9.