US BOYS TAKE SILVER MEDAL AT
WORLD YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIPS

HELSINKI, Finland - The United States boys settled for the silver medal in team event recently after a high-scoring battle with Korea at the 2010 World Tenpin Bowling Association World Youth Championships.Junior Team USA fired a game of 860 in the gold-medal match, but it wasn't enough as the Koreans got ahead and never relinquished the lead in shooting 892 at Tali Bowl. The Korean girls also won the team gold medal.Craig Hanson led a balanced effort from the Americans with a 226 game and was followed by Jake Peters (222), Devin Bidwell (211) and all-events gold medalist Andrew Koff (201). The Koreans were led by Ju-Young Kim with 237, while Hae-Sol Hong shot 235, Jong-Woo Park had 221 and Seung-Hyeon Shin had 199."There's a little disappointment, but you can never be unhappy when you bowl well, and all four guys bowled really well today," Peters said. "We feel we bowled the best we could, and they bowled better. You can't do anything about that."In the semifinals, the United States took down top seed Estonia with ease, 942-786. Peters led the high-scoring effort with a 279 game. Bidwell shot 227, Koff had 220 and Hanson fired 216. Korea knocked out Australia in the other semifinal, 812-755.Korea's girls team won the title with an 839-785 victory over Korea. The Koreans advanced to the gold-medal match by ousting England, 816-756, while Singapore topped Malaysia, 860-769.In Masters match play action, which began after the team semifinals and finals Saturday afternoon, the United States' four players were eliminated prior to the medal rounds.Koff advanced to the quarterfinals, but fell to Ju-Young, 3-2, in the best-of-five games format. After taking a 2-1 lead, Koff dropped the final two games 219-210 and 221-196.Junior Team USA's Jenn Boisselle also made it to the quarterfinals, where she lost to Korea's Moon-Jeong Kim, 3-1. Boisselle took the first game 242-224 but then lost 176-141, 234-225 and 243-192.In the Round of 16, Koff defeated England's Richard Teece, 3-1, while Peters fell to Finland's Samu Valaranta, 3-1. Christine Bator lost to Moon-Jeong, 3-2, while Boisselle defeated Hayley White of England, 3-2. Masters competition wraps up with the semifinals and finals starting Sunday morning. The United States Bowling Congress is working in cooperation with the Finnish Bowling Federation to provide live video streaming of the semifinals and finals of each event. Coverage will be available on BOWL.com, and the Masters coverage is scheduled to begin at 2 a.m. Eastern on Sunday.A field of 46 countries are competing in the World Youth Championships for medals in five events - singles, doubles, team, all-events and Masters match-play. Visit BOWL.com for complete coverage of the event.