The keglers at Showplace Bowling Center witnessed history Tuesday night as Erin Schneider rolled the highest series ever recorded by a female on Staten Island with an 857 series, the lefty’s first 800.
The previous high series by a female on the Island was rolled by Brooklynite Denise Galindez, who punched up an 844 set in the Marketeer loop at Rab’s Country Lanes in 1998.
The trouncing of the pins by Schneider, a New York City Department of Sanitation worker, came in the Tuesday Mixed League at the Travis center on booming games of 279, 299 and 279.
In all, Schneider rolled a whopping 32 of a possible 36 strikes.
“It’s still kind of surreal. I really can’t believe it,” marveled Schneider, whose previous high series was a 782 series rolled last summer.
Prior to Tuesday night, Lynda Preziosa’s 827 series rolled in 2017 was the highest series by a Staten Island female.
If not for a stubborn 7-pin in the 10th frame of her third game, Schneider may have surpassed the all-time Island high series of 877 rolled by Ryan Friend in March of 2016. She needed a 300 to do that. And don’t think for a second she didn’t realize what she could have accomplished.
“It’s heart-breaking that I didn’t do it," the 28-year-old said. “But soon after the game ended I sent Ryan a message that I was coming for him. He said, ‘Go for it.’ "
The way the night started for Schneider she would have never expected to do what she did.
“I got to Showplace late. I looked up and saw there were 25 seconds left to practice,” she said. “I threw one ball in practice and it wasn’t pretty.”
But she got lucky on her first ball in the first game, when it appeared she left a 5-7 split, but a pin popped out of the gutter kicked out the seven pin, which rolled into the five pin.
“It was one of the craziest things I ever saw,” she said.
After that, Schneider was pretty much locked in and nailed the first four strikes before sparing and then closed out the game with seven straight strikes.
In the middle game, she had the first 11 strikes before leaving the three-pin on her final shot in what Schneider termed “was a bad shot.” She missed out on her third career sanctioned 300 game.
In the finale, she nailed the first nine strikes that attracted a crowd of about 30 spectators.
“I bowl with headphones on (and modern rock playing) so I didn’t pay much attention to it,” said Schneider, who was averaging 207 in the loop before the night started. "But when I saw all the people I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to take them off now.’ "
On her 10th shot, she knocked over nine pins, picked up the spare and threw one final strike to end her historic night.
“I didn’t think I was ever gonna (shoot an 800),” she said. “But I’m happy I did.”
And she has the Island’s women’s record to boot.