Taravella’s Medina, Archbishop McCarthy’s Metellus are Broward bowlers of the year

Coral Springs Taravella and Southwest Ranches Archbishop McCarthy stood their ground as Broward County’s top high school bowling teams in 2022. Cesar Medina and Alyssa Metellus, respectively, played key roles in their teams’ successes.

That’s why Taravella’s Medina and Archbishop McCarthy’s Metellus are the Miami Herald’s 2022 Broward bowlers of the year.

Medina, a senior was integral in Taravella’s team success. He won the individual district title with a three-game score of 659, 28 pins ahead of individual runner-up Dean Rothschild from Western. At state, he had a four-game score of 816 in qualifying, which tied for 47th overall.

“Throughout all of the time since I started bowling, I didn’t expect to get this far,” Medina said. “When I started, it was mainly for fun, but I started taking it seriously and it really helped me improve and put in more consistency and more effort into the game.”

With Medina leading the charge, Taravella won the BCAA team title for a second consecutive year, finished as a team-runner up at district and advanced to the Baker round of the state tournament, where they advanced to the fifth round of the eight-round double-elimination team event.

“It was a really cool experience,” Medina said of the team’s run at state. “I’m very proud of the team, of how we did this year because it’s something that really meant a lot to me. I wanted to go to state with my whole team so we could all go and have fun.”

Metellus, a sophomore who transferred to Archbishop McCarthy after spending her freshman season at Nova High, repeated as the Miami Herald’s Broward girls’ bowler of the year after building on her freshman year success.

She won her second consecutive individual district title with a three-game score of 556 — 18 pins better than her performance last year when she was the only girl bowler on her school’s team at Nova — to help Archbishop McCarthy win the team district title over South Plantation. At state, she led all Broward County bowlers during qualifying with a four-game score of 643 that was good for 86th place.

“This year was a lot better because I had a whole team to support me,” Metellus said. “It was definitely good. ... The other girls tried to beat me and play to my standards and that encouraged everybody.”