Pickerington Central's Jacob Taylor bowls perfect game

Jacob Taylor seemingly had every reason to be nervous as he approached his final frame Nov. 30.

The Pickerington Central senior, who is in his first year on the boys bowling team and took up the sport less than a year ago, was competing in only his second official match. Nonetheless, Taylor swore he wasn’t thinking about bowling a perfect game until others did so.

“I didn’t have much realization I was on the way to a 300 until I went up for the 10th frame. Then I realized the four or five lanes around me stopped bowling and they were watching me,” Taylor said. “The anxiety never crept into my mind. My ball had been doing exactly what I wanted every single shot prior.”

Taylor reached perfection during his first game against Groveport at Rule 3, rolling the first 300 in the program’s 10-season history. He finished with a 189 for a 489 series, leading the Tigers to a 2,235-2,123 victory in a COHSBC-A Division and OCC-Buckeye match.

“When a kid starts bowling like that, everybody gets excited but I don’t do anything. I stepped aside and I acted like I didn’t know what was happening,” coach Jason Roach said. “You let them do their thing.”

At the urging of longtime friend Nick McGuire, who was one of Central’s top bowlers a season ago, Taylor started bowling about this time last year and purchased his first ball in January. It was too late to join the team last season, but Taylor used the past several months to hone his game, even switching from two-handed to one-handed bowling during the summer.

Taylor, who is averaging 192.3 per game, bowled a 154 in his only game of the season opener Nov. 28 against Pickerington North at Rule 3.

“I got subbed out and I wasn’t happy with that,” Taylor said. “I knew I didn’t play the lanes how I wanted to … so when I came in (Nov. 30), I was going in with a clean slate and not thinking about what happened. I wanted to use what the lane gave me, and things added up.”

Central is 2-1 overall as well as in both leagues. The Tigers’ next dual match is Dec. 19 against Hamilton Township at Wayne Webb’s Columbus Bowl.

While Taylor’s was the first 300 for a Tigers bowler in regulation play, Myles Etherington, Mason McClellan and McGuire all have rolled at least one in practice, according to Roach.

dpurpura@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekDave