Girls bowling: Sixth-game collapse costs Warriors at NIB-12 Meet

A momentary loss of that consistency cost them the title in the final game. 

The Warriors dropped from first to fourth in their sixth game of the day, as Sycamore leapfrogged both Sterling and Morris to claim the title by 1 pin over the Redskins. 

Sycamore had a score of 6,336. Morris was second at 6,335. Dixon, the regular-season conference champions, rallied with a strong sixth game for third at 6,325. Sterling was fourth at 6,282.

Morris' Savannah Strange won the meet with a 1,261.  

"It's a big disappointment," Sterling coach Dennis Black said. "All we had to do was bowl decently in that final game, and we would have won it. We weren't able to do that." 

The Warriors started slow with a 988 in the first game, putting them in sixth place, but they methodically moved up the field. 

They shot 1,092 and 1,070 in the next games, which helped them climb into second place and within 69 points of Sycamore. 

They blew past the Spartans in the fourth game, outscoring them 1,071 to 996, and seemed to have them buried by adding 42 more pins to that lead in the fifth game. 

The real threat seemed to be Morris, which pulled with eight pins of the Warriors in the fifth game by throwing the high-series of 1,148. 

"The day was not without positives," Black said. "We bowled four very consistent games, and we were right in position."

Sterling was in first place going into the last game by eight pins over Morris. Sycamore trailed by 48. 

While the Spartans excelled with a 1,075 game, the Warriors fizzled out with a 973. 

Dixon made good on the chance to finish strong. The Duchesses had held steady in third place most of the day before being overtaken in the fifth game by Morris. 

Dixon found the pocket in the final game, scoring an 1,117, led by Autumn Day's 257 and a 256 by Emily Quaco.