The names taking the lanes may change from year to year. But it was a familiar site at the end of the recent Essex County Team Bowling Championships – the girls from Nutley collecting their plaques as county champs.
For the fourth year in a row, the Maroon Raiders were crowned Essex County champions, rolling a team score of 2,079 on Jan. 21 at Bowlero in Belleville.
It is the sixth consecutive title overall for Nutley as there was no championship held in 2021 due to Covid.
To head coach Frank Sasso the streak is in many ways a testament to past success encouraging girls to give bowling a try with positive results.
“Part of it is success breeds success so other girls want to be a part of it,” said Sasso. “And one girl can’t win a tournament alone so you get friends (to join) or people are like ‘oh, I heard the bowling team’s doing good, can I try out?’ One of our starters (Camila Padilla) is a freshman who never bowled before and she’s doing very, very well. Another girl (Serena Ilog), this is her second year and she’s really putting up some solid numbers.”
Both Ilog (383 series) and Padilla (297 series) have been a part of Nutley’s five-bowler lineup all season.
But leading the way during the Championships was a four-year mainstay in the Raiders’ lineup, Gabriella Botti.
Botti, who has emerged as Nutley’s top bowler this season had arguably the best performance of her high school career on this day as she rolled the individual high game (222) and the individual high series (562) of the Championships.
“It definitely was one of her best for sure,” Sasso said. “She’s a competitor, but yet she has a good demeanor during the game. You don’t see too much emotion. She just goes up there and does her job.”
Few have done their job better than Botti, who’s 167.79 average is third in Essex County as of Jan. 28 and an improvement of more than 34 pins from a year ago.
“Last year she struggled with the style she was using and it was hard for her to adjust. You could see was frustrated,” said Sasso. “We chatted about making a different style of bowling, a more traditional approach. She worked on it, she practiced all summer, she got a little bit outside coaching and she came into the season ready to go with a lot of confidence.
“Everybody said ‘you’re going to lose your best bowler (2024 Essex County Individual Champion Gabriella Lucivero), it’s going to impact your team.’ I said somebody’s got to take her spot and Gabriella Botti wanted to be that person and she did,” Sasso said. “Then everyone else moved up a little bit. Everybody picked up the pieces and said, we could be just as good of a team.”
Like they have all season long, juniors Brooklynn Robinson and Karen Fukuoka-Schreiber have slotted behind Botti in the lineup and performed well. Robinson’s 427 series was seventh in the Championships and Fukuoka-Schreiber’s 209 series was tied for ninth.
For Robinson and Fukuoka-Schreiber, it was their third Essex County championship.
Overall, Bloomfield took second place with a score of 2,025, followed by Belleville with 1,875.
On the boys side, Nutley was narrowly edged out by West Orange for the team title by a 2,775 to 2,758 margin. Bloomfield finished fourth with 2,707 and Belleville was sixth at 2,459.
Nutley’s Jackson Cerniglia-Rapavi had the individual high game with 274. Belleville’s Ayden Carrero has the individual high series with 271 with Cerniglia-Rapavi taking second with a 658.
Nutley’s Jackson Veneziano was ninth with a 601 series and Jayden Padilla of Bloomfield was 10th with a 591 series.
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Jason Bernstein | Observer Sports Writer
Jason Bernstein joined The Observer as its sports writer in March 2022, following the retirement of Jim Hague. He has a wealth of sports-writing experience, including for NJ Advance Media (nj.com, The Jersey Journal, The Star-Ledger.)