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Collegiate women’s rugby team from Nebraska bowls duckpins in Donora

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Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter

Wayne State College’s women’s rugby coach Darrin Barner is shown with his players at the duckpin bowling lanes in the Croatian Club in Donora.

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Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter

Wayne State College rugby team member Kennedy Jones has her eyes on the duckpins in Donora’s Croatian Club.

DONORA – A women’s rugby team from a Nebraska college spilled out of a large touring bus last week without the players knowing they were about to step back in time at a duckpin bowling alley in Donora.

Residents along Castner Avenue took to their front porches Thursday, curious about the bus and why Wayne State College was in their neighborhood.

“It’s amazing, unbelievable,” said Tom Nobili, who manages the duckpin bowling lanes at the Croatian Club and never dreamed people would travel such a distance to experience this fading 1950s-era sport.

The Wayne State Wildcats were in Southwestern Pennsylvania to play in the National Small College Rugby Organization championships in Cheswick. This team has clout, too, because it has produced a national championship team in each of the last nine years. The team won its 10th national championship Sunday, Nobili said.

Their coach, Darrin Barner, said he likes old-school games and heard about Donora’s duckpin lanes in a story about the club published in 2017 by the Observer-Reporter and then circulated nationally via the Associated Press.

He said his team has worked incredibly hard to get to the national championships, and that he wanted to provide the students with a fun activity to “de-stress” them in advance of the weekend games.

“I wanted to give them a night out to relax and take our minds away from the game,” Barner said. “They deserve a reward.”

The Cro Club is among a small number of places in the region that still offer duckpin bowling, a sport that was quite popular in the 1950s and 60s.

Duckpins are smaller and shorter that those used in the traditional 10-pin game. This American version of bowling is supposed to make it more difficult to score a strike.

Meanwhile, the economy in Donora has never rebounded from the 1960 collapse of a sprawling steel mill in the town, a downturn that was beginning to take its toll on the Cro Club. It, too, was on the verge of becoming extinct three years ago.

The members found a new president in Jim Brandemarte and rounded up volunteers to clean up and repair the hall, Nobili said.

“It just wasn’t completely being utilized,” Brandemarte said before the rugby team arrived.

The club’s bank account held about $5,000 when he took over, a sum that would have been just enough to pay the real estate taxes that year.

“We took chances on entertainment,” Brandemarte said.

The gamble has paid off as the club membership has jumped from 120 people to 531 today, and there are frequent hall rentals, he said.

The publicity about the bowling alley has resulted in it becoming somewhat of a novelty tourism attraction, Nobili said.

Players have since come from Washington & Jefferson College and other locations, and there is an open-bowling night on Saturdays unless the hall is being used.

Barner said he didn’t tell the team where they were going that night as a surprise for the players from Nebraska, where duckpin bowling is unheard of.

“What’s duckpin bowling?” team co-captain Brook Hoesing said after entering the door to the lanes. “I think it’s supposed to be a surprise to everyone.”

“Is this ducky bowling?” said Anna Fleecs, the other co-captain.

“This is really exciting. When we walked in we were excited to see it,” Fleecs said.

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