BATON ROUGE - I’m not sure if this is good or bad and I’m not really sure if its even practical, but how about a ranking system for youth bowlers.

There are ranking systems for everyone in just about every sport, so why not?

Well apparently, the United States Bowling Congress thinks why not and now we have it. Their release states it is introducing a new way for competitive youth bowlers to track their performance and celebrate their accomplishments with the initial lunch of the USBC Youth Rankings – Powered by Junior Gold.

It is said to be the first national and state based ranking system of its kind for competitive youth bowlers in the United States.

The rankings are going through a testing phase to see if the rankings are accepted and how much complaining there will be, I guess.

The rankings are deigned to recognize competitive youth bowlers while providing athletes, parents and coaches with a “trusted” way to follow performance throughout the season. By bringing together competitive results from multiple sources, the rankings are intended to provide an increasingly comprehensive view of an athlete’s accomplishments and progress.

Looking at the present rankings that they have posted as a test run, the U18 top girls in the state through the 2025-26 season finds Malia Briggs of New Orleans at the top, Addison Legendre of Prairieville and Molly Milligan of Baton Rouge third.

Now you may be asking where’s so and so? Give me a minute we will try to explain although the questions how rank the answers.

On the boys’ side for U18 in the state, Anthony Linker of Metairie is No. 1 through the 2025-26 season, with Beckham Lieu of Marrero second. The top area bowler is Sam Battaglia of Prairieville in No. 13.

Here’s why the rankings are only through 2025-26, according to a USBC response to a question: “At launch in October 2026, we had collected the completed 2025–26 season’s league data, SMART scholarship results and Junior Gold Championships results.

“The 2026–27 season was approximately three months underway. Only a portion of Junior Gold memberships had been processed, season-ending league averages were not yet available, only a fraction of the season’s SMART scholarship results had been recorded, and the Junior Gold Championships will take place in July 2027. Because league data, SMART data and Junior Gold Championships results carry equal weight, there is not yet enough current-season data to publish meaningful 2026–27 rankings.”

It is expected that maybe by the end of the year there will be actual 2026-27 rankings but no guarantees are made as to when the first rankings for the current season will be posted.

So there are rankings, but there’s enough unknown to make determining the success of this hard to say at this moment.

Before we go, a reminder that entries are due in just a day for the Greater Baton Rouge city tournaments in December. Be sure and get your teams together to take part.

Back with you next Monday.

Until then good luck and good bowling,

                                                   Kent Lowe