Six Yukon athletes and their coaches recently returned from the national bowling championships in Vancouver.

Coaches Kevin Murphy and Wayne Beauchemin joined two bantam bowlers, two junior bowlers and two senior bowlers on the trip, where each bowler completes 24 games in the span of three days. Murphy said the trip to the championships included a couple of nice surprises.

'The two surprises were perhaps our youngest bowlers (bantams), Matthew Smith (10 years old) and Olivia Smith-Tucker (7 years old). Matthew won three of his matches and tied two for a total of five points. Olivia came in 11th spot with five points. She had five wins.

'(Olivia) was the absolute hit there. All the girls she was bowling with just loved her. One of us usually has lane duty, so we can't see all the games. We were very appreciative of Olivia being adopted by her fellow competitors.'

The rest of the bowlers also did well, with everyone posting at least one victory. Junior female bowler Nicole Thompson won two of her matches and actually lost a really close one as well, despite the fact she posted her second-highest score in the match.

'It was her first experience out at nationals I think she did OK,' said Murphy.

Junior male bowler Craig Beauchemin ended up with five points and bowled above his average during the competition, which Murphy said was very stiff.

'The fellow that won his division was a gold medalist in 10-pin bowling as well (the Vancouver event was five-pin bowling). This kid only lost three games out of the 24.'

In senior female action, Lindsay Tanaka ended up with four wins out of her 24 matches.

'The girl who won the division, from South Ontario, only lost two games during the tournament. So again, it was a very tough division in senior girls as well.'

That tough trend continues in the senior make category, where Yukoner Shawn Hamilton got his first win on the first day and then wasn't able to pick up a win for the rest of the competition.

'That's the most competitive division,' stated Murphy. 'Thinking back to the silver medal we won in that division in 2002 (Harrison Kwok), I think we were awfully lucky to have done that.

'We got silver with 14 and a half points and the guy who won this year had 18 points. Fourteen and a half would have put you in fourth place.'

Murphy said the entire competition showed him that the bowlers in Whitehorse need a lot more experience, which is something he hopes to provide in coming years.

'We'll have to look at trying to simulate some match play before we take another group of kids out,' he said.

But still, he called it 'a great trip,' and was thankful for the Yukon parents who came down to Vancouver to watch the action and help out the coaches.

'We couldn't have done it without them.'