Many things have changed for the Stuyvesant’s boys’ bowling team.
Former coach Larry Barth has retired. Three of last year’s bowlers are gone, including George Zisiadis (’07), who bowled an average score of 173.63. And boys’ tennis coach Timothy Pon, who endured a 4-6 record with that team last spring, is taking up the reins as head coach of the boys’ bowling team.
The Stuyvesant athletic program has also reduced the team’s funding. Though the Public Schools Athletics League will continue to pay for the season’s games, the team will pay for practice sessions and tryouts.
“It’s disheartening and surprising that they would do that to a team that has the best record in Manhattan,” sophomore Leo Ernst said. Last year, the team finished its regular season with a 10-0 record in their division.
Currently, the team is paying $5.75 per game for practice sessions at Leisure Time Lanes, located at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Previously, each game cost $4.50.
Despite these obstacles, “Going undefeated this year is definitely a possibility, seeing as we have a very strong team,” senior and captain Scott Ritter said.
Reaching the standard that Barth has set over the past few years will be difficult. Barth retired from coaching last spring to focus more on his family. He had coached the boys’ bowling team for since 1986 and achieved a 52-4 overall record over the last four years.
“I think Mr. Pon is up for it,” Ritter said. “Bowling is bowling, no matter how you look at it.”
Yet some team members doubt whether Pon, who now serves as a substitute teacher at Stuyvesant, is right for them. Since coaching the boys’ tennis team in 2001, Pon has coached only three teams that finished with a winning record.
“He’s not as involved as much as the team expects him to be,”senior Andrew Yang, returning for his second year on the team, said. “The rest of the team doesn’t seem to appreciate how he coaches.”
“He really wants to win and he does that by putting the team in the hands of the seniors,” said Ernst. “That’s a good decision.”
While Pon hasn’t had recent success in boys’ tennis, the boys’ bowling team has already won the first two matches of the season. But this performance has more to do with the bowlers than with the coaching. “While Mr. Barth’s experience is not there, the older members of the team have done a good job passing their suggestions on to the younger guys,” Ritter said.
One of those younger guys is sophomore and rookie Jack Pipitone, who bowled a 135-point average in his first two matches this year.
Ersnt is also shaping up to be one of the team’s top bowlers this year, earning 176 points on Thursday, September 27 in a match against Food and Finance High School. Stuyvesant defeated Food and Finance in three games: 547-361 in the first game, 643-347 in the second and 414-361 in the third.
It would appear the only thing missing from this year’s team is a name. “We’ve thrown around a few names ourselves, nothing has really stuck. The name is definitely a work in progress,” Ritter said.