Joliet West coach Scott Gentile’s decision to move sophomore Matt Pesavento up to varsity for Thursday’s Tinley Park Invitational proved to be a good one.
Matt and his brother, Josh, proved to be an unstoppable duo. Matt finished with a six-game total of 1,383 pins to capture the individual title and Josh (1,344) finished fourth to lead the Tigers to the team title at Centennial Lanes.
“It was really exciting knowing I was going to bowl on varsity,” Matt said. “Me and Josh have a family rivalry and we always like competing together and against each other.”
The Tigers totaled 6,249 pins to hold off Romeoville (6,091), Sandburg (6,058) and Lincoln-Way North (6.049) in the 15-team field.
Matt Pesavento topped Lincoln-Way North’s Kyle Krupske (1,347) and Romeoville’s Dakota Vostry (1,345) in the individual chase.
“At the beginning of the day, I was feeling good with my shot,” Krupske said. “It feels good to finish second. I think we did pretty good as a team, too, but I know we can still shoot better.”
Joliet West put up a huge score of 1,125 in Game 4 to take the lead for good. The Tigers struggled a bit in the final game and appeared to open the door to other contenders, but West combined for 13 strikes in the final frame to slam it shut.
“This is a big boost for us with conference and regionals coming up,” Josh Pesavento said. “Having [Matt] bowling with varsity made me want to do better because I wanted to beat him.”
Scott Lyman (18th, 1,229) also turned in a strong showing for the Tigers.
“This is a huge tournament win for us,” Gentile said. “We talked a lot about building momentum with conference coming up next week and the kids came out and had a great day.”
Josh Harder (tied for 6th, 1,304) and Brandon Torres (8th, 1,294) led Sandburg.
“We didn’t have Brandon in our last tournament,” Harder said. “Having him back and having our whole group was huge for us. We got back in our comfort zone and just bowled our game.”
Hillcrest’s Xavier Muhammad (5th, 1,330), Tinley Park’s Nick Shupryt (tied for 6th, 1,304), Richards’ Tyler Hancock (9th, 1,270) and Romeoville’s Kyle Zaremba (10th, 1,250) rounded out the top 10.
Richards (5,821) finished fifth as a team.
