Big Walnut bowler Aidan Furukawa earns spot on Junior Team USA by winning U18 title
Twenty-four hours after the biggest achievement of his bowling career, Aidan Furukawa needed a nap.
Even then, the fact that the Big Walnut senior will compete nationally and internationally by virtue of having secured a spot on Junior Team USA had yet to sink in.
“I’m still trying to process exactly what it means,” Furukawa said Sunday, a day after winning the U18 title at the 2023 Junior Gold Championships at Royal Pin Western in Indianapolis. “I don’t think I expected to win it this year specifically, but it was something I was hoping to win in my lifetime. … This is one of the most prestigious ones you can win. (But) it’s been a very long week.”
Furukawa hung at or near the top of the leaderboard throughout a week-long tournament that included four days of qualifying and four more rounds to narrow the field to 16 before match play Friday and Saturday. He made only four strikes in the final, but was perfect on spares to edge Andrew Robitaille of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 197-181.
None of Furukawa’s strikes came consecutively.
Even so, spares had been no certainty throughout the week for Furukawa, who during the high school season last winter won his first Division I district championship and tied for 29th at state. Big Walnut qualified for state as a team for the first time and finished 14th.
Boys bowling: 2022-23 Dispatch All-Metro team
“I was missing a lot of spares left and right. But when it came down to it, one game, I didn’t miss any,” Furukawa said. “I depend on a lot of spares. When I was missing them, I knew that wasn’t me.”
That’s where the long-distance advice of Furukawa’s coach, Quincy Walker, came into play.
“He just had to focus on his foot and body placement and attack single-pin spares,” said Walker, who considered Furukawa’s fifth-place finish in the 2021 Junior Gold a career milestone. “(After 2021), he was right where we wanted to be. We just had to stay calm and rededicate ourselves, understand the game a little more.
“We set goals. We made plans. His mental game got stronger. He started to gain more knowledge because of the patience he had for the game. He studied his equipment more … and learned how to use it to his advantage.”
Eighteen boys and 18 girls qualified for Junior Team USA, which competes in the World Youth Championships among other events.
Furukawa joins an elite group of bowlers that also includes Olentangy Liberty graduate Carter Street, the 2022 Division I state champion who now bowls for Wichita State. Street, who is in his second year with Junior Team USA, won the U20 title in Indianapolis on July 14 by edging national teammate Julian Salinas 204-201.
Bowling: Drive to excel leads Olentangy Liberty's Carter Street to state title
Furukawa’s final will air at 9 p.m. Aug. 22 on CBS Sports Network. Street’s win will be televised seven days later.
There might not be much drama in the re-air, but reliving the achievement will be no less special.
“There will be a lot of enjoyment watching,” Furukawa said. “(Last weekend) means that all the hard work I’m putting in is paying off. It’s pretty big.”
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Big Walnut bowler Aidan Furukawa earns spot on Junior Team USA
