ByJournal Sports Staff

ISHPEMING — A half-dozen youth bowlers from the Upper Peninsula will travel to Detroit starting Monday to compete at the 22nd annual Junior Gold Championships.

They include Westwood student, Evan Rae, and three other Marquette County bowlers qualified, but will be unable to attend.

Rae will compete in the boys’ 17 years old-and-under division.

The event also includes male and female 12U, 15U and 20U categories.

Rae was the final qualifier from a series of Upper Peninsula-hosted events held during the past school year after he won at an April event at River Rock Lanes in Ishpeming. Qualifiers have also been held at Superior Lanes in Marquette, Bowl-A-Rama in Escanaba and Recreation Lanes in Iron Mountain.

At the nationals, four-game qualifying rounds will be held each day from Monday to Thursday for a total of 16 games at eight centers in the Detroit area — AMF Rose Bowl Lanes in Roseville, Astro Lanes in Madison Heights, Bowl One Lanes in Troy, Century Bowl in Waterford Township, Skore Lanes in Taylor, Sterling Lanes in Sterling Heights, Super Bowl Lanes in Canton and Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park.

The field will be cut down for match play where bowlers roll another four or five games, depending on division, then cut after that again for the three-person, TV-style stepladder finals on July 19 and 20.

Those finals will be televised on a tape-delay basis on CBS Sports Network on July 23 for U12, July 30 for U15, Aug. 6 for U17 and Aug. 13 for U20.

Each show starts at 8 p.m. and likely will be repeated again that night and probably for several weeks after that, too.

BowlTV.com is also providing livestream coverage during qualifying at some of the eight participating centers, along with Sunday’s opening ceremony.

The other Marquette County qualifiers not attending the national tourney are Braden Vickstrom of Westwood, Keenan Johnson of Marquette and Dawsen Emanuelson of Ishpeming.

The other bowlers from the U.P. that will be in Detroit include Joshua Worthen and Jacob Worthen, both of Escanaba and in the boys’ U20 division; Ben Flaminio of Gladstone in boys’ U20; Matthew Meyer of Gladstone in boys’ U15; and Brooke Fornetti, an Iron Mountain graduate who now attends and bowls for Alma College in girls’ U20.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.