COHEA’s Tyler Keller, TERRA’s Gillian Pons are Miami-Dade County Bowlers of the Year
Tyler Keller and Gillian Pons both came to bowling in the same way most people do: They started casually, only they both soon learned just how competitive the sport could be.
Keller started bowling in a youth league when he was 6 or 7. Pons joined the team at Glades Middle School in Miramar when she was 11 or 12. For both bowlers, their commitment to making the sport more than just a casual hobby helped turn them into the Miami Herald’s Miami-Dade County Bowlers of the Year.
“Being on the bowling team at that time,” said Pons, who now bowls at TERRA Environmental, “it just started showing me what bowling is.”
Said Hialeah Educational Academy’s Keller: “I just saw how competitive it was.”
In 2020, both competed at the state championships after winning district championships.
Keller, a senior, was the best bowler in Dade County all season long and backed it up at the District 16 championship when he bowled a 736 across three rounds, nearly 200 points better than anyone else in the district, to reach the state finals as an individual qualifier.
Keller, whose best score during the regular season was 278, finished the year averaging 216 points per game. Only two other bowlers in Miami-Dade averaged more than 200 points per game.
He even traveled to Las Vegas earlier this month to bowl at the United States Bowling Congress Team USA Trials, where he finished 91st overall and 74th in the U.S. National Amateur Bowling Championships. Keller has been traveling to compete in national tournaments for about five years.
“That’s just what has excelled and elevated my game to the next level.”
Pons, also a senior, went to state, helping lead TERRA past Ferguson in the District 17 championship. She was the Wolves’ No. 2 scorer in the district finals, bowling a 505.
“I got our team together, we made a little huddle,” Pons said, “and we got the enthusiasm in everyone getting together and getting ready for the game.”
She then led them with a 706 at state and TERRA became the first Dade team in four years to advance to the second round by finishing in the top 16 at qualifying.
Pons also led the county in scoring all season with a 186 average.
Now she bowls with a 15-pound ball, but she laughs thinking about where she began in middle school.
“It was like an eight-pound ball,” Pons said, “and it had glitter on it and it was a plastic one.”
