BATON ROUGE - For St. Joseph’s Academy youth bowler Ava Doucet, the past couple of months have had her talent in the sport on full display.

Doucet has posted three combined wins on difference tours across the regions in the last several weeks and established herself as someone that is going to have to be seriously considered as one of the stars of the upcoming high school season in 2026, which is coming sooner than we think.

It was last weekend that she won the Gulf Coast Road 2 Junior Gold event in D’Iberville, Mississippi, winning the three-match eliminator bowl-off for the U18 title. Doucet had to advance through each game as the field cut from four-to-one in individual matches with low score eliminated.

But where Doucet has made her mark is in the Youth of Alabama Tournament Series (YATS) where she has won two consecutive tournaments in the series that has drawn bowlers from several states, as does the Road 2 Junior Gold set of events.

Doucet’s most recent win came a few weeks ago in the Tuscaloosa area.

It’s been a good fall for Doucet as she was also a top finisher in the Capital City Strike Out over Labor Day weekend and I know she is looking forward to being with her Redstickers teammates come the first of the year.

COLONIAL LANES CLASSIC

Quite a field of the nation’s top college teams were gathered at Colonial Lanes in Harahan for the Colonial Lanes Classic this past weekend.

Louisiana Tech, ninth in the latest poll, had a big Sunday last day at the event, moving from fifth to third after downing No. 7 North Carolina A&T, No. 5 Wichita State and then winning the third spot with a 4-3 win in the best-of-seven Baker matches with No. 2 Nebraska.

No. 6 Arkansas State was the tournament winner and Vandy took home second place in the event in which five sets of five-game Baker total pin matches were bowled on Friday, five traditional scoring one game matches were rolled on Saturday and then on Sunday three rounds of best of seven game Baker format matches.

In Baker bowling, one team member rolls the first and sixth frames, second and seventh, etc.

Tulane, ranked No. 19 nationally, took home seventh place after wins Sunday against No. 8 Sam Houston and No. 4 Youngstown State.

Southern’s bowling team finished 14th in the competition that featured 11 top 25 ranked teams.

Saturday, Mia Stolakis of Tulane captured the individual MVP title with a five-game total of 1,182, averaging 236.40 for five games on games of 208-239-257-267-211. The senior from Worchester, Massachusetts, became the first Tulane bowler to earn two MVP tournament honors in her career.

LA Tech’s Kylee Trexler averaged 213.80 and finished eighth. Southern’s top bowler was Alanna Jones, who averaged 180 for the five games.

FINAL FRAME NOTES

All Star Lanes in Baton Rouge will host its annual post-Thanksgiving No-Tap event on Friday at 2, 4 and 6:30 p.m. The four-game event will feature side entry pots and men’s and women’s divisions with a $30 entry fee. This one has been going on for a long time and usually draws a nice entry.

Some area bowlers will be up in Alexandria Saturday and hopefully Sunday for the Nightmare Before Christmas Scratch Shoot-Out at Four Seasons. Three qualifying squads on Saturday before the best 2-out-of-3 match play bowling on Sunday. This year’s top prize is $6,000 based on 200 entries.

We will be taking next week off to enjoy an extended holiday weekend. We’ll be back on Dec. 8 with a couple of more Monday columns to cap off 2025.

           Until then, Happy Thanksgiving and good luck and good bowling!

                                                                        Kent Lowe