Bowling: South Plainfield's Neal, East Brunswick's Lenk win GMC Individual Championships

WOODBRIDGE - South Plainfield's Lanasia Neal and East Brunswick's Daniel Lenk each won their Greater Middlesex Conference Individual Bowling Championship titles in dramatic fashion Monday afternoon.

Neal, who was the No. 1 seed after qualifying, defeated second-seeded Victoria Stasicky of Monroe by one pin, 180-179, to win her second consecutive title.

"It feels good, especially since it's my senior year, so I can go out with a bang," Neal said.

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Third-seeded Lenk took down top-seeded James Stoveken of Woodbridge by throwing a perfect game, and he won the title, 300-245. 

"The expectation was to go out and bowl like I always do, not think about anything else," Lenk said. "Debbie Stein is my coach, and she always tells me to take it one frame at a time. Also my dad says that. So one frame at a time, don't think about anything else, and I also had my team to support me and my coaches."

The top 30 girls and top 32 boys advanced from last week's first round, and the top five bowlers from qualifying advanced to the stepladder finals on Monday.

Lenk bowled a 206-246-268-1388 to qualify as the third seed and advance to the finals. The junior defeated fifth-seeded Will Orak of Monroe, 234-187, then beat second-seeded Louis Folgore of Monroe, 256-234, which set up the final match against Stoveken.

Orak defeated fourth-seeded Andrew Mai of East Brunswick, 237-193.

"I'm used to it because I do tournaments outside of high school bowling, but other than that, I don't give up. I drink a lot of water, and my teammates help me stay awake and help me get motivated too to do good," Lenk said. "I just acted calm, like it was a normal match, I didn't even look at the score until the end. I just took it one ball at a time."

For the girls, fifth-seeded Bridget Bolan of Monroe took down fourth-seeded Trinity Gray of North Brunswick 200-195 and third-seeded Eleni Feggulis of South River, 215-195, before falling to Stasicky, 206-192. 

Neal qualified as the top seed for the second-consecutive year after bowling 195-199-237-1336. Stasicky finished with a 222-202-212-1244. 

"Qualifying I bowled really well, I came in here like, 'OK, try and put up about the same numbers,' just keep making my spares, and I'm not focused on winning but visualizing myself making all my spares and not worrying about what anybody else is doing," Neal said.

Neal and Stasicky were close the entire match, and Stasicky held the lead as Neal entered the 10th frame. 

"I was practicing and I had great ball reaction, so then I got over here, and I knew I was going to bowl Victoria. So I was just focused on making my spares, and when I got the first strike I was like, 'Alright, I can calm my nerves,'" Neal said. "The whole game I was making my spares and the 10th frame I was like, 'OK, stay to the right,' and I got a little excited and my arm went right to the left.

"My mind and my arm were not together, so I was like maybe I'll get the three and slide it over and then I won by one pin. It feels really good, I can't even, it's too much."

Neal and Lenk will look to keep their momentum going into the GMC Team Championships, which start next week. The Monroe girls team won last year, while the East Brunswick boys won the team title and finished the season with a Tournament of Champions crown. 

"I feel confident we'll do good as a team," Lenk said. "Last year we lost a few seniors, but I think this year we're going to be about the same so I think that we'll be really good this year."

Staff Writer Lauren Knego: lknego@gannettnj.com; on Twitter: @laurenknego