By BILL SNIER
CANTON — Hendrick Livengood has made a habit out of topping Stark County USBC junior tournament fields.
The North Canton Hoover High School junior continued his run Sunday — albeit with a new partner — to claim the 18U division during the Stark County USBC Halloween Youth Doubles at Strike Zone Lanes on Sunday.
After claiming the past two doubles titles with Green’s Peyton Taylor, Livengood paired with Rootstown’s Olivia Davies to top the division with 2,000, finishing 68 pins ahead of Perry’s Arielle Clapper and Jackson’s Rylee Dunn.
The event drew 20 total doubles teams across four divisions, with bowlers each rolling two regular games and then combining for four Baker System games in the handicapped event. Handicap was based on 80 percent of 420 per team.
The Canton duo of Palmer Boyd and Lucas Good topped the entire tournament with 2,068 in taking the 16U division.
BATTLE FOR 18U
Davies, a 17-year-old left-hander, attends Bio-Med Science Academy in Rootstown but bowls for Rootstown High School, which is coming off its second straight trip to the OHSAA Division II State Championships and a seventh-place finish a year ago.
“We lost two girls to graduation, but we’re hoping to make another run and we want to do better,” said Davies, who shot 454 at state a year ago.
Davies and Livengood bowl in the Spins Bowl-Akron junior program.
“I struggled a bit the first game, but I did better in Game 2,” said Davies, who finished with a 348 series for two games. “But we had good energy going into Bakers and we fed off each other.”
The pair finished the four-game Baker round with 217 to clinch their run.
“It was nice to get some Baker practice in before the season begins,” Davies said.
With Taylor not available, Livengood asked Davies to join him. He turned in the tourney’s high scratch series with 500, including a tourney-high 276 in Game 2.
“I was kind of playing ball roulette the first game,” said Livengood, who went through three balls before settling on the Track Theorem to finish Game 1 with seven strikes and then throwing the front six in Game 2. “I was throwing the ball really well, hitting it at the bottom and the ball was just doing its own thing.”
After his Hammer Effect Tour was damaged during Bakers, Livengood switched to urethane for the final game — and the pair threw six strikes in a row at one point to clinch the win.
When asked about his success, Livengood laughed and added, “I don’t know … house-shot demon I guess. I know my equipment will work here, but in league play, I will have to hammer it.”
If this was a scratch event, Clapper and Dunn would have topped the field.
“We thought we had a good chance, but handicap gets the best of you most of the time,” said Clapper, who will be seeking her fourth straight Division I state trip with the Panthers this season after they finished as state runnesr-up a year ago and she was a first-team All-Ohio after a 662 series.
Clapper finished with a 469 series while Dunn, a Polar Bears senior, had 447. The pair also combined to average 208.5 in the Baker round. But they received only 182 pins in handicap to the champions’ 384.
“I really don’t know why we did so well in Bakers,” Clapper said. “We kept the same order for the first two games, but then we switched positions the last two.”
“We had the same scores, but it seemed whoever went first was bowling better,” said Dunn, who also converted the 4-7-10 split the final game.
But both also agreed bowling this event on the house oil pattern at Strike Zone was an early advantage since the center will serve as Federal League rival Canton McKinley’s home center this season.
“It was nice that I was able to find a line here before the actual matches begin. I can also help the other girls on the team along the way,” said Dunn, whose team also will occasionally practice at the center.
“I bowled here before, but it wasn’t the same. Since they reopened, it’s really a nice house shot,” Clapper said.
Both have a goal in mind — claiming Federal League player of the year for their senior seasons. But their friendship also remains strong.
“When it comes down to it,” Dunn added, “it’s really not that big a deal.”
TOPPING 14U
Jayden Reid and Nathan Nava-Gray still are in middle school, but will be heading to rival high schools when the time comes, with the former attending McKinley and the latter GlenOak.
The pair finished with 2,063, finishing just two pins ahead of the Canton duo of Austin Manoff and Case Miller (2,061).
The one wrinkle in the event was the Baker round, which neither player has experienced.
“It was really fun … different,” said Nava-Gray, who finished with a 342 actual series as the pair received 720 pins of handicap.
“It’s more pressure because you only get so many shots,” said Reid, who shot 225 in Game 2 en route to a 422 series.
The pair shot 157 the final Baker game to clinch the win.
OTHER DIVISIONS
- Boyd and Good gained the win in their division by 72 pins over the East Canton pair of Kenneth Ford and Dylan Lint (1,996).
- Massillon’s Luca Ohman and Storm Minton topped the 12U division with 2,130, finishing 75 pins ahead of another Massillon pair of Marvin Shipley III and Jared Williams (3,055).
NOTEBOOK: SMART scholarship awards were presented to winners in each division by the USBC. … Prior to the start of the tourney, a free equipment giveaway was held at Strike Zone by the Stark USBC, including balls, bags, shoes and accessories. Over 30 bowling balls were given away to interested youth bowlers, donated by bowlers throughout the area with accessories also provided by Park Centre Lanes. … High school bowling tryouts begin this week for members of the Stark County High School Bowling Conference, with the regular season kicking off with the 10th annual SCHSBC Early Bird Tournament, set for 9 a.m. Nov. 15 at Eastbury Bowling Center. It will be bowled on the 2025 OHSAA sectional-district oil pattern. … Our thanks to Stark USBC association manager Sue Vukmanovich for her assistance with this report.
