Cortese sisters lead Hoffman to MSL crown
It seems like every time the Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg girls bowling teams have collided in recent years, all the marbles were be on the line.
Several weeks ago, the Hawks and Saxons battled to all but settle the regular-season title in the Mid-Suburban League -- a hard-fought meet in which neither team gave up. Hoffman won the meet, then held on to beat Prospect in the MSL finale.
The two teams met again at AMF Lanes in Rolling Meadows on Saturday -- with the MSL title on the line.
With no one else close to the Hawks or the Saxons -- they were once again the center of the action.
Behind the usual Herculean efforts of Natalie and Amanda Cortese, Hoffman Estates won the meet with 86 points, 2 more than it scored during the regular season.
"It was close all day," said Hawks coach Dan Pfliger. "We had Schaumburg in the first game. In the second game we had Schaumburg by 19. It was close in the second game. Our girls did some high shooting. We bowled 1,122 and 1,098 for a 6,222 (in the morning). The girls really started stepping up."
There was a point in the meet when Pfligler was worried about whether his team could win.
"I think at the end," he said. "Schaumburg is a team that's going to fight to the finish and they did. We were up by 4 points but over 120 pins near the end. They came out on fire and put together some strikes and we were behind by 80 pins."
In the final MSL standings, Schaumburg placed second with 82 points.
Prospect and Conant, who waged a two-team race for third place, finished in that order. Prospect ended up with 67 points, while Conant ended up with 55.
Rolling Meadows had 1 more point in the MSL meet, but remained in fifth place when the conference meet and dual-meet point totals were added together.
"We needed some help from other teams, and we needed a good job beating them (Hoffman)," said Schaumburg coach Mark Kelly, whose team bowled 6,064. "Usually when you're bowling 6,000, you're bowling outstandingly."
Natalie Cortese won the MSL championship for the third time in her four-year career. She finished second to her sister by a fraction of a point last year.
"Today's scores were high," Cortese said. "Every game I bowled, I bowled hard. I thought if I step up my game, they (teammates) can step up, too."
Natalie Cortese finished with a 224.17 average.
Her sister Amanda was the MSL runner-up with a 223.06 average.
Rounding out the top 10 were:
No. 3. Prospect's Hannah Wrenn (215.75); 4. Schaumburg's Samantha Kelly (215.14); 5. Palatine's Amy Modic (207.56); 6. Schaumburg's Marilyn Gawlik (205.53); 7. Hersey's Shauna Pauly (204.53); 8. Conant's Pam Wawrzyniak (203.19); 9. Conant's Alyssa Mari (201.3310); 10. Schaumburg's Jody Gawlik (198.78).