PIN PERFECTION

WASILLA — Nana Rita would be proud.

That’s what 16-year-old Steve Ehrhart was thinking as he entered the 10th frame Friday in the first day of competition at the 2011 Alaska U.S. Bowling Conference Youth State Tournament at North Bowl. Competing in doubles with partner Wayne Gore, Ehrhart had already rolled nine balls down lucky lanes 17 and 18 — all strikes.

“At the 10th frame, I just thought to myself about her, I asked her for help,” Ehrhart said about his grandmother Rita Delgado, who passed away not too long ago.

“Him and her were really close,” explained Ehrhart’s father and coach, Steve. “It was just out of the blue and I thought that was cool, asking my mom for help.”

With or without any extra help, Ehrhart needed only three more balls to topple the last 30 pins and score his first perfect 300 game.

Although in the zone, Ehrhart said he didn’t really start thinking about a perfect game until the seventh frame. That’s when Gore missed his first strike.

“We both took strikes all the way into the seventh frame, and he hit the pocket perfectly and left a solid 10 pin,” he said. “He deserved a 300, too. He struck out from there and we finished with a 300 and 267.”

Missing a perfect 600 scratch doubles score by one strike was also “unbelievable,” Ehrhart said, but he also almost called it. After both put up strikes in the first frame, Ehrhart jokingly commented to his partner.

“I turned away and said, ‘Wayne, why don’t we just both bowl 300s right now,” he said. “And I did it.”

While a 300 game from a youth bowler with a 185 average may seem like a fluke, Ehrhart has been making waves in the state USBC scene for a couple of years. At the state tournament in Kodiak in 2009, he shot a 700 series and a pair of 600s. That’s when he began to realize his potential for competition bowling.

“I won everything I played there and won the tournament,” he said. “I thought I was just average until then.”

Before Friday, his closest brush with a 300 game came a couple months ago, when he took a perfect scorecard into the 10th frame. He had a strike on the first ball, but missed the second, finishing with 289.

“It was nerve-wracking and I was shaking,” he recalled. “I got that first strike, then I left the 10 pin after hitting the pocket. I was so close.”

Although he tried to concentrate Friday, he admits thinking about that missed pin when he approached the 10th frame at the tournament.

“When you get to the 10th frame, of course you’re thinking about the 300,” he said. “The whole bowling alley stops, nobody else is bowling around you. They’re all crowded around your lane. I was drinking water and my hand was shaking. I had to get it to my mouth fast or I was going to spill it on myself.”

Unlike his previous attempt, his second ball of the 10th was a perfect blow to the pocket and scattered the pins. That left one more ball, a throw Ehrhart said didn’t feel good when he let it go.

“As soon as I let go of it, I thought I didn’t even get a 299 out of it, let alone a 300,” he said. “The ball came across my body, it missed the pocket, went high on the headpin, and that’s never a good ball. I was thinking, ‘I just blew it.’ But things just kind of spun and flipped over each other. The four and the seven (pins) were left standing, then all of the sudden they just dropped.”

That’s when the bowling alley erupted, he said. “I turned around and everyone just went nuts.”

For his father and coach — himself a former competitive bowler with three 300 games to his credit — looking on was just as intense as if he were throwing the balls himself.

“Watching him do it was nerve-wracking for me, too,” he said. “That last ball, I was so excited for him. He’s improved himself so much. I’m behind him all the way. He’s got so much potential. He concentrates, he wants to do well every time he’s out there.”

And while dad carries a higher average right now at 208, he can see the gap closing quickly — though not as quickly as the son believes.

“On average, he’s better right now,” Ehrhart said of his dad. “But head-to-head it’s almost even.”

“It is?” replied his father. “I don’t beat you three out of four?”

That first game for Ehrhart and Gore gave the pair a nearly insurmountable lead. They won the doubles competition, taking a 95-point lead into their final game.

For the Colony High School sophomore, rolling a perfect game and winning state youth titles is a huge improvement from his first competition.

He was about 8 at the time.

“When I was little, the very first state tournament I went to in Fairbanks, I was really nervous — I get nervous every tournament still — but I threw a gutter ball the very first ball,” he said.

As for the future, Ehrhart wants to keep bowling competitively, earn scholarships and bowl for Wichita State University, “which is about the best bowling college in the United States,” he said. “I want to major in sports management. I want to be an agent.”

Until then, he’ll continue to practice and work on being less nervous during competitions. Ehrhart also has a secret weapon in his corner — Nana Rita. When he asked her for help during the 10th frame Friday, that last bad ball needed a little something extra, he said.

“Well, somebody pushed the four-seven over.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.