ORLAND PARK | The T.F. South boys bowling team might just have a new name: the cardiac kids.
Sitting in sixth place after the three-game morning session, the Rebels stormed back to a second-place team finish at the Sandburg Sectional at Orland Bowl.
By finishing second, the Rebels advance to next week's state finals at St. Clair Bowl in O'Fallon. Devin Brand finished in first place individually with a pinfall of 1,365. Anthony Pena (1,217) finished in 18th for the Rebels, with teammate Justin Abston (1,213) 19th.
"It's real exciting," Brand said. "This is my last year. (Taveon Roberson) told us we was going to go down state this year, and I didn't believe him, but we pulled through."
The Rebels trailed Sandburg by 151 pins heading into the sixth and final game. T.F. South's 957 team score in the final game was good enough to leap frog host Sandburg and send the Rebels on to state.
"It was mandatory for us," Abston said. "We have too many good bowlers to not go down state. I'm pretty proud of us."
Defending state champion Andrew finished first in the team standings with a 6,397 pinfall. T.F. South's final team total was 6,024. T.F. North finished 10th in the team competition with a 5,388.
"We just kept on fighting," Rebels coach Eric Valiska said. "I said don't worry about what anybody else does. Keep on picking up your spares and keep on marking. They just kept on fighting, I'm proud of them."
T.F. North's Trevond Scott placed 36th in the individual standings with a 1,125. Meteors senior Dennis Minefee (1,069) finished in 42nd place.
"I didn't really bowl bad today it just wasn't state qualifying good," Scott said. "It was a solid day overall, but there's nothing you can do about it now, the season's over."
Minefee wasn't too happy with the T.F. North finish, concerned about a lack of execution.
"Today was a rough one," Minefee said. "It all came down to execution and picking up a lot of spares. That's pretty much the whole thing. Overall the season wasn't as great as we thought it was going to be, but at the end of the day, we had a better record than we did last year."
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