Apopka bowlers, Lake Minneola’s Kai Evans claim national championships
Apopka’s state championship boys bowling team added a second national title to its trophy case last weekend.
The six-time state champion Blue Darters rolled through the U.S. High School Bowling Federation national tournament in Beavercreek, Ohio, with stellar play by graduated seniors Jeremy Walker and Richard Caruso and rising senior Isaiah Jackson leading the way Saturday. Apopka shot three consecutive 1,000-pin games — averaging more than 200 per player — to top the six-game qualifying round and stayed in the lead through four “survivor” rounds that reduced the 54-team field to 16, 8, 4 and then the 2 finalists.
The Blue Darters remained dominant in the national final, firing Baker system games of 244, 217 and 255 for a 716 total against defending champion Harlem High School of Illinois, which totaled 645.
Walker bowled a four-game series of 879 and then a three-set series of 703, including games of 254 and 253. He finished sixth individually in a tourney that began with 376 bowlers.
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Caruso, last fall’s Florida individual state champion, had an 885 qualifying series.
Jackson bowled 277.
Malik Taylor (810 in qualifying), Chase Robbins (808) and Kevin White (787) rounded out the Apopka lineup. Taylor and White were May graduates. Robbins will be a senior in August.
“This tournament was something these guys were waiting for,” said Blue Darters coach Doug Campbell, who accompanied the team. “They were getting together for practices after school and they were all shooting big numbers. They kept progressing.”
Apopka won the USHSBF tournament in its inaugural year, 2016, and joined Sun Prairie of Wisconsin as the only schools who have won the boys tournament twice.
This year’s event had entries from Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
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Clearing hurdles
Lake Minneola’s Kai Evans, already a state track champion as a sophomore, is also a national champion.
The FHSAA Class 3A state titlist shattered the Central Florida record for the 400-meter hurdles last Friday with a 51.44-second time to win at the New Balance Nationals meet at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
His time is fastest in Florida history by a 10th-grader, eclipsing a mark of 51.89 by Artie Burns, a two-sport star for Miami Northwestern who went on to play cornerback in the NFL. Evans blew away a longstanding Orlando area record of 52.17 set by Johnny Love of Oak Ridge in a national meet in 1995.
Evans was the only non-senior in the top seven. He defeated the 2023 national leader, Bryce Tucker, who ran 51.59 a day after clocking a 50.96 to win the New Jersey Meet of Champions.
Varsity Content Editor Buddy Collings can be reached by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com.
