WATCH: Apalachin Man Bowls Perfect Game At National Championship
I've always considered myself to be a pretty good athlete, but there is one sport (okay, there's probably more) that I haven't been able to master and it's always frustrated me. I'm talking about bowling.
I'm a pretty good softball pitcher, so I thought I would be able to master bowling because it involves the same kind of motion. Nope, not even close, so I want to congratulate James Zaharis of Apalachin for his recent feat.
First 2022 United States Bowling Congress Open Championship Perfect Game
He rolled the first perfect game of the 2022 United States Bowling Congress Open Championships. The tournament kicked off on March 12th and goes until July 18th. There will be 47,000 bowlers that will hit the lanes at the South Point Bowling Plaza in Las Vesga but no one will do what Zaharis did.
He was the first bowler to roll a perfect game during the USBC Open Championship. It hadn't been going well for Zaharis through five games but Friday morning, March 25th everything changed.
It didn't start out that way with games of 161 and 167 but he did some tweaking and history was made. He decided to use a ball that's worked well for him when he's at Ripics Carousel Lanes in Binghamton.
He was using this particular ball for his spares at the USBC Open Championship. He did a little practicing and it turned into his magic ball and secret weapon. The perfect game almost got away in the 7th frame but a lucky break kept the streak alive.
Zaharis said that when he's going for a perfect game, that is his toughest frame. To use a men's college basketball tournament term, he "survived and advanced" with the last three shots being as good as anyone would expect.
James Zaharis From Apalachin Rolls First Perfect Game at 2022 USBC Open Championship
He's not only the first to do it this year but this 73-year-old is the second oldest bowler in tournament history to throw the perfect game.
Tony Lindemann from Detroit was 74 when he tossed one of his 14 perfect games in 1994. Zaharis is not the only competitor to roll a perfect game at the Open Championships. In 2018, his former teammate, Richard Clark from Johnson City rolled the last 300 at the event in Syracuse.