DuBOIS, Pa. (EYT/D9) — Melia Mitskavich takes a deep breath.
Inhale. Exhale. A 15-pound bowling ball nestled in her hands.
She takes a measured step forward. Then another. And another. Drawing the ball backward, then forward, her arm a pendulum, before letting it go.
The bowling ball glides and spins over the oiled wood planks, seemingly floating and toward the pocket in a gentile arc. The crash of the ball against the wide mouth of pins is loud — and satisfying — as all 10 of them topple.
Nothing left. A strike.
One of many for Mitskavich, a senior at DuBois Central Catholic who has already carved out quite a career on the lanes, both locally and nationally.
(Pictured above, Melia Mitskavich has committed to bowl at Jacksonville State in Alabama/submitted photo)
Everywhere Mitskavich has gone, she’s succeeded. No matter the lane, the oil pattern or the stakes, she has been able to persevere and win.
Now she is taking the next step, toward what she hopes is a professional career, by committing to bowl at Jacksonville State University in Alabama.
“I mean, I always had an idea of where I wanted to go,” Mitskavich said. “There really aren’t a lot of programs.”
The allure of Jacksonville State was simple.
It’s a new program led by Shannon O’Keefe, who is one of the most successful bowlers in the world. She built a program at McKendree University in Illinois before coming to Jax State that won a national championships.
O’Keefe also has 15 titles on the Professional Women’s Bowling Association Tour, including three major championships.
That’s a resumé Mitskavich wants to have one day.
“I honestly think it’s the best place to prepare me for becoming a professional,” she said. “Shannon is very talented and her husband, Brian, is also a coach and I think they can really take it to the next level.”
Mitskavich’s level is already pretty high.
She now has six 300 games to her credit and more championships than she can count.
On Thursday it was announced that she has the highest youth bowling average in the nation in the United States Bowling Congress with a 236.12 over 75 games in the DuBois Lanes Juniors league. It’s the second straight year she has had the highest youth female average in the country.
In November, she rolled her first-ever 800 series.
Achieving that may be more of a challenge than rolling a perfect 300 game. Her consistency was remarkable with a 267, 278 and a 257 for an 802 series.
“I mean, 300 is obviously hard,” Mitskavich said. “But an 800 series, you have to be really good for all three games. That was my first. I’ve wanted that for a long time and it felt really good to do it.”
November was a very good month at the lanes for Mitskavich.
(Mitskavich poses with the championship banner she earned for winning the Storm SYC championship in New York earlier this year/submitted photo)
Earlier in the month, she competed at the Storm Youth Championships Coastal Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and won the girls U18 title.
“It was really awesome because at those tournaments, once you win, they put a championship banner up with your name on it,” Mitskavich said. “I had won the SYC tournament previously in March (in New York) and I won again, so I got to bring that banner home, which was really cool. I wanted to bring it home and hang it in my room. And they are making me a new banner that says two-time champion. Every time you win, you get a new banner, which I think is really cool.”
There’s another big event on the horizon for Mitskavich.
In January she will compete for a PBA Junior National championship in Wichita, Kansas.
Bowling has long been in her blood.
The sport is the family business — literally. Her parents own DuBois Lanes.
Her mother, Jackie (Sellers) Mitskavich, was a member of the PBA Womens’s Tour in the 1990s after a stellar career at Penn State University, where she was the National Collegiate Bowler of the Year twice.
Jackie won three events on the tour during her professional career.
“I don’t think I would be in the place I am today without her,” Melia Mitskavich said about her mother.
Penn State no longer has a bowling program.
With so few to choose from, it boiled down to Jax State, Duquesne and Vanderbilt for Mitskavich.
“I really wanted to go to Vanderbilt,” she said. “But to be honest, that didn’t really work out. They didn’t want me, so that was disappointing. But now that I think of it, I made a great decision. I think it’s better than if I would have been at Vanderbilt.”
At first, however, Mitskavich has some qualms about Jax State.
“When I first went there, I wasn’t really sure if the school was the right fit for me,” she said. “But I talked to a student who was on the team right now and she’s currently a biology major, which is what I want to study, and I was just talking to her about the program. I wasn’t sure at first, but after talking to her and a couple of people about it, I was sold. And the coaches are super nice and I think it will be an incredible experience.”
