By Jeff Gard/Today’s Northumberland
Cobourg junior lawn bowler Jacob Hyatt recently got his first taste of provincial competition and next up is nationals.
Hyatt, who is 12 (soon to be 13), placed second at the Ontario Lawn Bowls Association junior championship July 2-3 at Willowdale. He enjoyed the competition at provincials and wanted to test himself against his own age group, which is under-18. There’s no junior program at the Cobourg Lawn Bowling Club this summer so he’s competing with adults.
At provincials, Hyatt won his opening match 18-12 and the second 18-15 before losing in the final 18-6.
“My semifinals game was really tight,” Hyatt said, noting he did earn a victory over a 17-year-old opponent. “My finals game I kinda went downhill a bit and I don’t really know what happened.”
Playing on artificial greens certainly proved to be a challenge.
“It was very fast, it curved a lot,” he said. “You had to find a perfect line to curve right in there.”
Hyatt has goals to win or more provincial championships while in the U18 group and hopes to contend for a national championship as well, though says that will be a big challenge.
His first opportunity will come July 31 to Aug. 6 at the Canadian Youth Championships in Mississauga.
“I feel like it’s going to be really tough cause there’s people from all around…coming to play in this tournament so I think it’s going to be really tough because I’ll see some different bowlers out there,” he said.
Hyatt said he was introduced to lawn bowling by his babysitter Sarah van Steijn when he was just two years old. He’s loved the sport from that early age and has learned a lot from her children, Baylee and Ben van Steijn, both accomplished lawn bowlers themselves. Sarah van Steijn coached Hyatt at the recent provincial championships.
Hyatt, who also plays soccer and hockey, enjoys the challenges lawn bowling presents.
“If you’re in a sticky situation just stay calm, like take some deep breaths to figure out where you want to go to try and knock them off the jack and you’ve got to find that perfect line and perfect weight to get it right close to it before they find that line before you,” he said.
He hopes the junior program will return to the club in the future and encourages other kids to give lawn bowling a try.
“It’s very fun and it’s very social too because you have a lot of kids bowling, too,” he said. “You’d have to stay focused and calm though in the sport.”
