Hoffman takes regular season

After the Hoffman Estates-Schaumburg super meet two weeks ago, it seemed the Mid-Suburban League girls bowling title still hadn't been won.

Well, yes and no.

It took until Thursday afternoon before Hoffman won the regular season outright by defeating Prospect 7-2. Schaumburg finished off Fremd 9-0 to make the final standings Hoffman 86-4 with Schaumburg just behind in second place at 83-7.

The ultimate MSL champion will be decided when the league championship meet is held Saturday at AMF Lanes in Rolling Meadows with another 90 points up for grabs.

"Prospect took one game. That really helped us," said Schaumburg coach Mark Kelly. "That really tightened things up."

The Saxons didn't have one of their best dual meets of the season, but Kelly couldn't find much fault in his team's effort.

"They did OK," he said. "They hung in there.

"They wanted to bowl well. They wanted to get the mindset to bowl well Saturday. I would've been tickled to death for a split."

Prospect pulled off a rare feat, taking points from Hoffman.

"We had a bad first game," said Prospect coach Greg Troyer. "We were over 100 pins down in the fourth frame of the first game. They just weren't into the game. We won the second game, then we had a bad third game."

Hoffman bowled 981-1,030-965 for a 2,976 series while Prospect rolled an 857-1,046-943 for a 2,806 total.

"The third game we were in it the whole time,," Troyer said. "Neither team could carry strikes. They just had more spares. I think they had 6 opens in the whole game and we had 9 opens. That's 30 pins. We lost by 22.

"From the second to the third game on, it was just a real contest. Unfortunately we had a slow start which got us off on the wrong foot. But we had a lot of positives. This is just half the season. We still have 90 points to go. It's anyone's right now."