ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607150151
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
BOWLERS FROM THREE STATES converge to form another large and competitive field in the Commonwealth Games.
Although he had heard nothing but good things about the Commonwealth Games bowling competition, Anthony Whitehead never thought he would participate in it.
``My friends had been telling me about it for years,'' Whitehead said. ``I asked them, `How can I get in that?' They said, `You can't. You live in Maryland.'
``Then, one day, I got a letter in the mail saying, `Congratulations, you are invited to compete in the Commonwealth Games of Virginia.' At first, I thought it was a mistake.''
Barry Tyler, who bowls with Whitehead in Hyattsville, Md., had a similar reaction.
``Then, I read the small print,'' he said. ``It said something about being one of the top five scratch bowlers in my association.''
Whitehead and Tyler, members of an association that includes bowlers from Northern Virginia, put on a stunning display Saturday morning at Hilltop Lanes to put themselves into early medal contention in the boys' 15-and-over division.
Whitehead, 22, had games of 221, 229 and 245 for a 695 set. Tyler, 14, opened with a 274 and followed that with games of 235 and 241 for a career-high 750.
It was the seventh career 700 set for Tyler, who thought he was in the 14-and-under division before learning the divisions are based on age as of Aug.1. He turns 15 next week.
``I couldn't tell how it was going to go,'' said Tyler, who carries a 220 average and has been bowling for 10 years. ``On the first couple of [warm-up] balls, I felt kind of lost.''
Whitehead, Tyler and Whitehead's father, Buster, had spent the night in Lexington - the closest place they could find accommodations. They got a late start and arrived at the hotel between 12:30 and 1 a.m. Wake-up was at 6:30.
``When I was at work yesterday, my mother called to say there were no rooms anywhere,'' said Whitehead, who works at an accounting firm and takes classes at Montgomery (Md.) College. ``I was on the phone from 10 till 3 and Lexington was the best I could come up with.''
A shortage of hotel rooms played havoc with many travel plans. Bobby Huffman, a finalist among 15-and-over boys in 1994 and 1995, attended the opening ceremonies Friday night at Victory Stadium, then drove home to Staunton to spend the night.
``I was looking forward to it,'' said Huffman, who overcame a slow start Saturday morning to roll a 596 set, including a 246 in the third game. ``I had to work July 4, so this was the first chance I had to see the fireworks.''
Huffman works approximately 54 hours a week between his jobs with Southern Electric and Pizza Hut and only bowls regularly in a Saturday morning league.
The bowling tournament had attracted record fields in each of the previous two years and, with 190 bowlers Saturday, was down only six from last year.
``I believe, if we had the hotel rooms, that we would have had another record this year,'' said Harold Stultz, who, with colleague Bruce Dillon from the Roanoke Bowling Association, has run the tournament for the past four years.
``I know of five women from Petersburg who withdrew because they didn't have a place to stay. But, if we had any more bowlers, we might have run out of lanes. I was considering asking the local bowlers to bowl on Friday night.''
Stultz said he did not know until this week that there were two national conventions in town. When he left the Roanoke Civic Center at 7 p.m. Friday, Amway conventioneers were starting to arrive ``and it almost looked like a parade,'' he said.
Nevertheless, the bowling tournament attracted competitors from 73 localities in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. One of the bowlers who did have a hotel room was Susan De Luna of Virginia Beach, whose father made reservations shortly after his daughter's invitation arrived in June.
De Luna, 16, is participating in the Commonwealth Games for the fifth time. She won a silver medal from 1992-94 before moving up to an older classification in '95.
``So many of our tournaments are handicap tournaments,'' said De Luna, who had games of 193, 194 and 188 on Saturday morning. ``This tournament is important to me because it's scratch and I feel I can win. I wonder why there aren't more of them.''
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB