Quesnel Special Olympic athletes excelled on the other side of the country, picking up a few medals in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island at the Special Olympic Canada Bowling Championships on May 15-19.
The Quesnel Alley Cats won a bronze medal in their division for 5-pin bowling and Eldon Carter won silver for his individual performance in 5-pin too.
Coach Ellen Martz says the tournament format was match-play pins-over-average.
The Alley Cats were in Division C with a team average of 683.
After seven games they bowled a total of 4987, giving them 206 pins over their average.
The team entered the semi finals guaranteed a bronze and came up short against a tough Ontario team.
Carter had a 164 average going into the competition and was 105 pins over average, which won him the silver.
He says he is proud of what he was able to accomplish on the second day of the tournament where he had scores of 235 and 203.
“I was practicing before I left for a couple weekends,” he says, so when it came time to perform he was ready.
“I psyched myself up saying, ‘Yeah, I can do it, I can do it.'”
Carter says it was interesting meeting people from all over the country on his first time traveling for the Special Olympics.
Thirteen family members came on to cheer the Alley Cats and according to Martz their energy was infectious, pushing the team to perform at their best.
Also competing individually from Quesnel were Beth Hoffman, who fought through some elbow issues and came up short of the podium; and Evan Curr, who placed fourth in his division, missing out on third by only 10 pins.
Curr calls Langley home, but qualified with the Alley Cats in 2017 and wanted to represent them on the national stage.
