{"id":441946,"date":"2026-10-29T23:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T23:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/441946\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T23:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T23:12:09","slug":"orlando-area-bowlers-sweep-fhsaa-state-bowling-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/441946\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando-area bowlers sweep FHSAA state bowling championships"},"content":{"rendered":"

It had been four years since an Orlando-area boy won the FHSAA bowling i<\/a>ndividual state championship. And six years since an area girl claimed a title at Orlando\u2019s Boardwalk Bowl.<\/p>\n

Both droughts ended Thursday when Winter Park sophomore Eden Bastian won the girls championship in an all-Orange County final, and Windermere High\u2019s Ryan Martin came out of the loser\u2019s bracket to win the boys title.<\/p>\n

Bastian was unbeaten in head-to-head bracket play until she lost to one of the most decorated girl bowlers in Central Florida history, East River senior Larielle Tharps.<\/p>\n

Bastian bounced back from that setback to defeat Tharps and claim the championship in the double-elimination format. Bastian won the first game 197 pins to 192 and second 239-225 in the best-of-three final.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just had to forget about the first match and throw my game with confidence,\u201d said Bastian, who also handed Tharps a loss in a Wednesday night winner\u2019s bracket match. \u201cI felt like I was going to throw a flush strike on every shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bastian, like her older sister, Emma, stars in softball for the Geneva School. FHSAA rules allow her to bowl for Winter Park because Geneva doesn\u2019t have a bowling team.<\/p>\n

\"WinterWinter Park high bowler Eden Bastain won the FHSAA individual state championship at Orlando’s Boardwalk Bowl. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

It was just the start of a long day for Tharps, who finished third in the state meet last year and is a repeat area girls bowler of the year. Soon after individual play ended, East River continued its quest for a fourth straight girls\u2019 team title<\/a> in play that went into the night on Thursday.<\/p>\n

In the boys final, Martin survived elimination matches in the morning before facing Mateo Ruiz of Park Vista (Lake Worth), who had beaten Martin in a Thursday morning match. The Windermere standout turned up the intensity in high-scoring finals matches. He dealt Ruiz his first loss with 279-269 and 254-209 victories, then repeated the effort with 256-246 and 233-227 wins to capture the championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really turned it on,\u201d Windermere coach Joe Amendola said. \u201cHe\u2019s pretty quiet and doesn\u2019t pump his fist much. His success and confidence breeds more success and confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin said it was as simple as turning down the ambient noise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of things going through my head when there were multiple matches going on with a lot of noise,\u201d Martin said. \u201cOnce we got to just one match, I was able to focus more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t do well as a team, so it was to win (individually) and represent Windermere High School.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WindermereWindermere High senior Ryan Martin won the FHSAA boys bowling state championship at Boardwalk Bowl. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

The last time both individual bowling state champs were local was in 2016 with Bishop Moore\u2019s Daniel Bryan winning the boys title and Circle Christian\u2019s Leanne Vastbinder taking the girls title.<\/p>\n

The most recent boys champ from the area was Apopka\u2019s Richard Caruso four years ago. And it was six years ago when Lake Mary\u2019s Sierra Poole won the girls title.<\/p>\n

Hagerty\u2019s Johnathan Madruga finished sixth in the boys competition. Wesley Archer of Leesburg was 10th.<\/p>\n

East River\u2019s Olivia Watson placed ninth in the girls bracket. Lake Highland Prep\u2019s Emma Jackson was 11th and Gateway\u2019s Hailey Fitch 12th.<\/p>\n

East River, Windermere sweep FHSAA bowling district titles | Varsity Weekly<\/a><\/p>\n

Varsity content editor Buddy Collings can be contacted by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It had been four years since an Orlando-area boy won the FHSAA bowling individual state championship. And six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3745,139,141,140,76046,76642,110],"class_list":["post-441946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-high-school-sports","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social-sports","tag-social-varsity-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}