By TIM TAYLORTioga County Sports Report
SYRACUSE — Owego’s Connor Kotski garnered a sixth-place medal at the NYSPHSAA Boys Division 2 Individual Championship tournament held at AMF Syracuse Lanes here Saturday.
Senior teammate Evan O’Hara would place 19th in the 56-man event.
Kotski opened the day with a 256 and followed it up with a 201, but slipped to a 181 in game three, finishing the series at 645.
“The first set wasn't great,” Kotski said. “There were a lot of strikes and my spare shooting was not what it should have been, but the second half, you kind of saw the opposite where I picked up all my spares and was kind of struggling to find the strikes.”
His second series was a 654, giving him a 1299 total for six games. He began with a 237 followed by a 224. His final game was a 193.
Kotski was happy to get into the top 10 and earn a medal.
“Overall, it was above average,” he said. “Not the result I wanted, but I can't walk away disappointed.
“It was great, obviously. Going in, I had expectations. I wanted to win, but understanding that there's a lot of great competition here, I was aiming for a top-five finish and missing that by three pins, not really a whole lot you can do, so I'm happy with it.”
O’Hara finished with an 1167 for the day. He started out with a 191 and 187, but wrapped up the first series with a 223 to finish at 601. He had a 566 in the second series with games of 194, 185 and 187.
Weedsport’s Ethan Reitema won the individual title with a 1381 while Chenango Forks’ Landon Butenko was the runner-up with a 1366. Waverly’s Derek Johnson took fifth with a 1302 and was three pins out of fourth place.
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IN PHOTO 1: Connor Kotski. IN TOP PHOTO: Evan O’Hara. … PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
