This Is Iowa: Jefferson boy among youngest to ever bowl a perfect 300
All across our state, memorable moments unfold every day. It's one thing to hear about them later. And another to be in the room when they happen.
Like the moment that, even several weeks later, keeps spinning around Jefferson's town square.
The crack of exploding pins lures in bowling addicts who love to see them fall, even when one-game-a-year luck strikes for a new bowler.
"They get three or four in a row, and then it's like, now you're watching because you want to see what they're going to do next," said John Woodford, the owner of Spare Time Lanes & Lounge.
Carter Fecher found a lot of gutters when he started.
"I was averaging 30 when I was 9," he said.
So now that he bowls on Greene County's High School team, he loves it when that pair of size 3 Velcros shows up on Lane 6 with his own ball. That's when Pierce Abbotts goes to work.
Abbotts, a Jefferson 9-year-old, caught the bowling bug when he was 6. And something struck.
He could experience the same highs and lows as his dad while hanging with the big boys on varsity — and sometimes beating them.
"It's a lot of fun from a lot of different aspects, but it's also just as frustrating," said Brett Abbotts, Pierce's dad.
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Pierce uses two hands when he bowls, something plenty of pros do, too.
"It helps me because I'm 9," Pierce said. "So you can increase the weight of your ball and throw it faster."
"The one takes out the two, four and seven, and then the three takes out the six and 10," Pierce said. "And then the ball takes out the seven, eight and five."
The guy in those small Velcros doesn't mess around, so no one flinched when Pierce entered Jefferson's New Year's Eve tournament.
Pierce threw strike after strike after strike. People started to take notice, his dad said. Someone offered him $20 if he recorded a perfect 300.
"About after the fifth, sixth frame, he couldn't miss," said Fecher, who had been bowling in the lanes next to Pierce.
Word started to spread about the perfect game Pierce appeared to be bowling, and people started gathering around.
"We all just stopped and just watched," Fecher said.
"I was like, 'Geeze,'" said Jacob Rumley, Greene County High School freshman. "He's strike and strike and strike and strike. Impressive ... He's 9. That's crazy!"
A 9-year-old bowling nine strikes in nine frames is not something you see often in bowling, Woodford said.
With perfection a possibility, Pierce's knees were shaking, and his dad was worried.
"My fear, honestly, was that he was going to miss," Brett said. "And then you have this big letdown."
But 42 minutes into the new year, dad hit record. Everything went quiet as Pierce lined up to throw that final frame. As the bowling ball rolled down the lane, inching closer and closer to the pins waiting to be knocked down, the whole bowling alley exploded with cheers.
"Everybody is giving me high-fives and talking to me," Pierce said.
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Three-hundred games just don't light up the scoreboard for someone Pierce's age.
"It is rare, you know, the odds are the same as getting, you know, getting a hole in one," his dad said.
In fact, no one in America has ever had a 300 game younger. The fact that the tournament was a nine-pin no-tap contest makes it unofficial, which his dad, Brett Abbotts, said is "kind of a bummer."
"My 300 wasn't sanctioned," Pierce said. "So ... it didn't count."
So the fourth-grader moved on in the tournament, playing — and beating — Jacob Rumley for third place, and celebrating his perfect start to a new year like any 9-year-old champion would.
"He just asked for chicken nuggets," Brett Abbotts said. "Just wanted some chicken nuggets."
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