Bowling: Dutchtown’s Beam, St. Amant’s Cagnolatti win state singles titles

BATON ROUGE – Both gold medals in the Ochsner LHSAA Bowling Championship singles competition are making a short trip east on I-10 to Ascension Parish.

Dutchtown junior Ryan Beam and St. Amant sophomore Cadence Cagnolatti turned in sterling performances Friday at All Star Lanes to claim singles titles.

Beam – who set a state two-game record last week with games of 290 and 300 in the Griffins’ first-round team match – had games of 246-264-211-222 for a 943 series, seven pins ahead of silver medalist Cade Fletcher of Denham Springs, who rolled a 936 set. Joseph Frisella of Terrebonne was third with 925.

Austin Martin of Ponchatoula just missed the podium, finishing fourth with a 923. The top New Orleans region finisher was Jacob Vangilder of Brother Martin – the Outstanding Bowler in the Crusaders’ sixth team title Thursday – who finished fifth with a 922 set, including 741 over the final three games.

Other top 10 finishers locally included Jonathan Freeman of Archbishop Shaw, who was eighth with an 897 series, and Dylan McDonald of Brother Martin, who tied for ninth with an 889.

When the girls took center stage in the afternoon, Cagnolatti took the lead in the opening game and never looked back, rolling games of 223-220-216-223 for an 882 series.

Only one other girls bowler – freshman Gracie Dawson of state champion Denham Springs – averaged above 200 for the day. Dawson earned the silver medal with an 806 series, while Jolie Boudreaux of Central Catholic was third with a 793. It was another eight pins back to Cagnolatti’s teammate at St. Amant, Briana Macaluso, who finished fourth with 785.

Taylor Hunn of Mount Carmel, the New Orleans region MVP, led all area bowlers with a 735 series, good for 14th place among the 48 girls qualifiers, while Archbishop Chapelle’s Elizabeth Hamilton finished 18th with a 705.

Both 2021 champions – Connor Domangue of Central Lafourche and Jayden Hauck of Hammond – finished seventh in their respective divisions.