BATON ROUGE -  This evening bowling takes its place in the Louisiana High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame when Rick Bourgeois earns his spot in this prestigious hall.

He becomes the first person associated with the sport, now over 20 years old, to be inducted in the Hall of Fame. It is well deserving that he is the first to represent our sport.

We have documented all the things that Rick has done over his career as a bowling organizer, promoter, overseer of the Malco Theatres bowling division and so much more. But the start of high school bowling was the dream of a group and Bourgeois took that dream and put together a plan that the LHSAA would adapt for the first official team championships beginning in 2005.

Congrats Rick. I hope it is a great night for you.

Brackets and Power Ratings

You know there’s been a lot of talk about some of the high school brackets in other sports and some of the bad matchups that sometimes happen and teams that pundits say don’t belong in the playoffs.

So, hear me out as I go against the grain.

For the first time this year, I could honestly say we needed a couple of play-in matches for the 2026 Division I playoffs. There were too many good teams that didn’t make that top 16 and maybe should have had a chance to get a shot at the bracket. Maybe a 20-team bracket with two play-in matches to get to the top 16.

Look at the 16 and 15 Division I seeds taking out the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds. I am a North Louisiana guy by birth but I’m so tired of the power points that certain schools get in their region that keep teams in Division I from getting a placement as a better on paper team.

There needs to be a tweak to the power rankings that adds something that actually proves how good a team is on paper and on the lanes.

I’m not exactly sure what that tweak is but team averages and scores certainly could be an added component 

Also, we lost our big couple of days of bowling by the Baton Rouge teams against the New Orleans teams. That certainly helped power rankings for teams in both regions. It helped Denham Springs this year with their win over Holy Cross. It basically clinched their playoff berth. They then went out and beat the No. 2 seed. 

Matches against teams from other region would certainly help the power ratings. Let’s see Captain Shreve bowl one of the teams in Monroe or Alexandria. There’s travel expense in that and teams may not be able to handle that I understand, but give those teams in Division I that can do it a power rankings bump.

Finally, my lukewarm feelings of the team event have been over documented. I know it fits a time block that works for school and bowling centers who give up a lot of lineage and lanes every year from January to April.

But did you notice in the NCAA women’s final and the soon to be televised Intercollegiate Team Championships, the format changes for the television final. 

The finals of the high school team events have been streamed for years on Crescent City Sports and this year simulcast on the LHSAA Network. Maybe a finals format change for the broadcast would be in order and maybe give better clarity to the broadcast and the chance for a more anything can happen final.

The six players over four lanes are difficult to televise. It is tough to commentate and fans to know exactly which match you are referring to. There’s got to be something better for the broadcast finals. We’ve had a couple of suspenseful matches over the years, but sometimes it’s over before we get to the third game and it’s tough to gain and keep an audience at that point. 

Just my opinion.

District Tournament Saturday At All Star

This event started last year and was a pleasant surprise and the second running of the Louisiana High School Coaches Association All District Team Championship will be held beginning at 9:30 a.m. here at All Star.

Basically it involves the top six and next six averages in a District that are first and second team all-district selections. They form a five-player team bowling two traditional games and then 10 Baker Games. The top four districts advance to a stepladder final featuring best of 5 Baker Games.

Should be a very interesting event. We’ll have results next Monday.

Until then, good luck and good bowling,

                                                         Kent Lowe