By: James McKeever
The most pleasing aspect of South Brunswick’s boys bowling season for first-year head coach Chris Hayston was that his team never gave up.
It would have been easy for the Vikings to throw in the towel on the dual-match season after starting off 2-6. The players would have none of that. They put together a 9-7-4 mark the rest of the way to finish the season with a respectable 11-13-4 record.
"The kids responded well," said Hayston, who is no stranger to coaching, having coached soccer, boys basketball and baseball for a number of years at the school. "It was a pretty good year. We bowled better as the season went on."
In the GMC Tournament the Vikings performed well, but ran into a soaring St. Joseph’s team and lost the best-of-three match 2-1. South Brunswick nearly rolled a 3,000 series in defeat.
"We had our moments, but we never had that game where we put it all together," Hayston said. "All of our bowlers had good games and sets, but we never seemed to have everybody bowling well at the same time. And sometimes when we did bowl well, we ran into teams that just out-bowled us. We had some ties that we should have won. We tied Carteret and they went on to win the state championship."
Team leaders Rob Kohutanycz and Matt Forthun were rarely out-bowled. Kohutanycz, a senior, had a team-high 198 average, with highs of 279 and 690 (series). Forthun, a sophomore, averaged 194, with highs of 279 and 724.
Kohutanycz earned GMC All-Red Division honors and advanced along with Forthun to the second round of the GMC Individual Tournament.
"You always knew what you were going to get with those two," Hayston said.
Senior Billy Orchard finished strong and ended up with a 181 average. He recorded a 266 high game and a 620 series.
The other three members of the team in the regular six-man rotation will be back next year. Junior Adam Kinder had a 170 average (highs of 223, 660). Jared Kohutanycz and Carmine Sadano were impressive as freshmen. Kohutanycz finished with a 160 average, rolled highs of 210 and 570 while Sadano averaged 167, recorded a 215 game and a 603 set.
"It was a pleasure to coach Robby and Billy and we wish them well in the future," said Hayston. "It was a lot of fun to be around this entire group of bowlers. A lot of people got better."
As far as next season, Hayston knows that replacing Kohutanycz’ numbers and Orchard won’t be easy. But there’s enough talent left to be a GMC contender.
"We have two spots to replace, but we’ll have experience back and I expect all of our returning bowlers to improve," the coach said. "This season Adam Kinder became more consistent, Jared and Carmine emerged as freshmen and Matt will be starting his third year of varsity next year. I’m looking forward to the season."
