Jillian Dumais watched her brother Bryson compete at the United States Bowling Congress Junior Gold Championships in the past, and this year the Auburn native decided it was her turn to compete in a national tournament.

“This year, I was ready, and it was my last year to go before next year I go to college,” the rising senior at Edward Little High School said.

Dumais competed in the U18 girls division in Indianapolis, Indiana, July 17-20.

She competed at a qualifier at Portland’s Bayside Bowl in January and won with a four-game total of 654.

Heading into the Junior Gold Nationals, Dumais practiced picking up spares. Just-In-Time Recreation in Lewiston, where Dumais hones her craft, holds youth practices on Wednesdays, and the first 40 minutes of practice are just working on spares.

“There’s a lot of mental preparation,” Dumais said. “I do a lot of spare shooting, especially with single spares. A lot of days during practice, I don’t pick up my strike ball; I only use my spare ball. That’s what I usually work on.”

A spare ball has a plastic covering, so it doesn’t hook as much when it hits the oil on the lane. A strike ball has a urethane or hybrid cover on it.

Dumais went through four days of qualifying, as she was one of 588 bowlers who competed in the U18 girls division at the Junior Gold Nationals. On the first two days, she had four-game totals of 621 and 619, but improved in her final two days with scores of 661 and 673 in the final two days.

The difference for Dumais in the final two days was the ability to pick up more spares than the first two days.

“It was a lot of adjusting to the patterns (of the lanes), and I definitely made more spares in the last two days than the first two days,” Dumais said. “I had to make a lot of surface changes to get my ball to react on the lane. Different patterns and different lanes — the ball reacts differently. If it’s a short pattern, it will hook way sooner than a long pattern will. It was adjusting to the patterns.”

After the four qualifying days, Dumais found herself in 384th place but didn’t advance to the Advancer Round, which took the top 84 bowlers in the division. She was the top Mainer in the girls U18 division, beating out Brooke Gervais (403rd place), Jennifer York (538th place) and Selena Binette (585th place).

Gervais and York are also from Auburn, while Binette is from Naples. Dumais and York were teammates on the ALTered Mayhem High School Bowling Team — made up of bowlers from Lewiston, Edward Little, Leavitt and Poland high schools — this past season. Gervais competed for a high school club team in Portland.

Dumais kept tabs on the others from the Pine Tree State.

“Both of them are great bowlers themselves,” Dumais said of Gervais and York. “I have bowled with them since I have started bowling. They are very good competitors, and they did very well out there, too.”

Gervais had the upper hand on the other three Mainers heading into the fourth day of qualifiers, until Dumais overtook her on the fourth day.

“My goal going (into the tournament) was to make spares and not worry about hitting strikes,” Dumais said. “I probably only got maybe 10 strikes total.”

Competing at the Junior Gold Championships allowed Dumais to meet college coaches at a convention in Indianapolis before the tournament began. Dumais will be a senior for the 2023-24 school year.

There are only a handful of colleges in New England that offer women’s bowling. Dumais said Merrimack, St. Anslem, Sacred Heart and Bryant offer the sport.

Some of Dumais’ friends don’t realize she’s trying to play collegiately.

“I mention it, and they (are) like, ‘Oh, that’s a sport?'” Dumais said. “I am like, ‘Yeah, it’s as much of a sport as you playing hockey, you playing lacrosse.’ It’s not very (well) known. I will say, ‘I have practice tonight,’ and they say, ‘What sport? You don’t play a sport.’ I am like, ‘I bowl. I have practice for the high school (team).'”

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