Ohio USBC Women’s Bowling Association State Championship
Team Actual Champions – This is What We Do
Jessica Hatcher 712
Rachael Delserone 678
Lindsey Coulles 648
Kari Watson 642
Jennifer Owens 611
Friendships and championships go hand-in-hand for these Dayton bowlers.
The team of Jessica Hatcher, Kari Watson, Lindsey Coulles, Jennifer Owens and Rachael Delserone won the Ohio United States Bowling Congress Women’s Bowling Association team actual championship with a 3,291. Despite a tournament-high 810 series by Teri Haefke, of Youngstown, in the final weekend of the team event, the Dayton team’s score held up.
“The best part about this is not that I won – it’s who I won with,” Coulles said. “Winning with people you are close to is the best feeling.”
It was the first state title for Coulles and Hatcher, who bowled together in high school and college, and the first state actual title for Owens who won a handicap team title 14 years ago.
“Because it’s scratch, it’s really like winning for the very first time,” Owens said. “And it’s not any easy feat with the talent we have in this state.”
Shannon Pluhowsky, Cathy Dorin-Lizzi, Jodi Woessner and Haefke are among the highly regarded bowlers who call Ohio home.
“You can’t worry about who else is bowling,” Owens said. “With the group we have, we all know what we are capable of, it’s just a matter of executing.”
Watson and Delserone, the lone non-Dayton bowler on the team as she lives in the Cleveland area, earned a state team title one year earlier with three different teammates. The 42-year-old Watson has earned three state crowns in the past four years but it never gets old.
“It’s definitely still fun,” Watson said. “The money is really in the handicap division, so, we’re not bowling for money – we bowl for titles.”
While winning is fun, it’s about much more than strikes and spares for this state championship team.
“We’re all friends off the lanes and we have a lot of respect for each other,” Hatcher said. “We do a lot to encourage each other and help each other out.”
That camaraderie is critical in the team event.
“In team, not everyone has to be killing it but we all have to be solid,” Watson said. “When someone is struggling, we have to be there to pick them up.”
Unselfishness, in fact, was the first word that came to mind when Coulles described her teammates.
“The ability to help each other out, even if you’re coming off a bad frame, is so important,” she said. “Everyone is able to put ‘me’ aside for the better of the team.”
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