Lake Zurich’s Max Galarce perfect at USBC championship

Lake Zurich native Max Galarce bowled a perfect score at the United States Bowling Congress Junior Gold Championships U20 Division Monday.

Galarce, who graduated from Lake Zurich in May, was the first person to score a 300 at the five-day competition in Buffalo, New York. It ends on Friday, though Galarce was eliminated Wednesday.

To put his accomplishment into perspective, out of the best 2,479 youth bowlers in the country, Galarce was the only one with a perfect score until Tylor Greene of Davison, Michigan, bowled a 300 on Thursday.

While it of course took a lot of skill, Galarce said he got lucky on his last three shots.

“The first two were Brooklyn strikes, which are on the left side of the pocket instead of the right, so that was a godsend,” Glarce said. “The one wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t as good, and I got a lucky little break when I tripped the pin out.”

A strike earned with the help of a tripped pin is still a strike to the occasional bowler; to a bowler of a higher caliber, it means that the shot wasn’t perfect.

But Galarce got over it pretty quickly.

“I heard people saying ‘That’s the kid who rolled the 300!’ It was ridiculous,” he laughed.

Because several people were filming Galarce during his final shot, USBC found and posted the best one on its Facebook page Monday. The video received upwards of 3,000 “likes.”

Success in bowling isn’t foreign to Galarce — in fact, he rolled a perfect game one other time in a competition.

Beyond that, he was captain of Lake Zurich’s boys bowling team in 2013-14, as well as one of its best bowlers. Though the team did not qualify for the state tournament, it did win its regional tournament on Jan. 18, where Galarce had a 225 average, which was the third best overall.

Galarce, who has bowled since he was 11 years old, doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon. He plans to go out for the bowling team at the University of Wisconsin in the fall, when he’ll be a freshman.

He chose to attend Madison over several other schools because it offered everything he was looking for, the most important factors being great academics and a bowling team.