Local bowlers head for nationals

Meaghan Wass and Morgan Dickens know they're the best in the state. Now they'll find out how they stack up against the nation's best bowlers.

Wass and Dickens will head for the National Junior Bowling Championships to be held July 6-13 in Buffalo. The two Carson City bowlers will be joined by two other Carson bowlers - Chris Graham and Kimberly Zink - who will also compete in Buffalo.

At the Gold Dust West Bowling Center, Wass and Dickens recently won the Pepsi State Junior titles. Wass, 22, won the female state crown, while Dickens, 19, won the male state title.

There have been 1,728 bowlers who have signed up for the national event and they'll all be competing for the crown. This will be the sixth year to go to nationals for Wass and she has finished in the top 100 the past four years. The other three Carson bowlers will head to nationals for the first time.

The ultimate goal for Wass and Dickens is to finish in the top six, which would place them on the USA Junior National team. Eight male and eight female bowlers will be selected to represent the U.S. internationally. Along with the top six receiving automatic spots in the team, two other bowlers will be selected.

Wass also had an impressive finish in which she recently took fourth in a Northern California Junior Bowlers Tour event in Dublin, Calif.

Both Wass and Dickens have a goal to bowl professionally. Dickens would like to make it to the PBA Tour some day and there's an effort to restore the PWBA Tour to the status it once was, so Wass has aspirations to bowl professionally as well.

Wass was direct when talking about why she likes bowling so much. "It's a sport where no one sits on the bench," said Wass, who won her first and last junior state title for bowlers 22 and under.

She had a 1,304 series for six games to win the state title. Anothe goal for Wass, who has a 212 average, is to bowl a perfect 300 game. The closest she came was when she rolled a 290, settling for spare in her first frame and then going on to roll 11 straight strikes.

Dickens, 19, who has a 218 average, has rolled a perfect game twice. He had a 1,347 series over six games to win state, but he had to sweat it out. Dickens was one of the first bowlers to finish and had to watch for the rest of the weekend to see if anyone could beat him.

"It was a relief," Dickens said. "I was watching who could beat me. I had to wait the whole weekend."

When asked at what age she began bowling, Wass said three. "I think that would be the same for all of us," said Graham, 21, who maintains a 185 average, and has a high game of 285. "I think we would all say we bowled when we were three."

Graham and Zink say they know what they're up against at nationals, but want to see how they stack up. Zink, 18, has an average of 180.

"I'm just going there to have fun," Graham said. "I'm basically going to try my best. But i just want to have fun and be with my friends."