Junior Team USA ready to face challengers at 2006 World Youth Championships

When Junior Team USA's P.J. Haggerty and Stefanie Nation return to the World Youth Championships in a few weeks, they personally will notice the growth of bowling worldwide -- more countries, more competitors and more challengers.

Haggerty and Nation, who will be competing in their final events as Junior Team USA members, lead a strong United States contingent into the 2006 World Tenpin Bowling Association World Youth Championships, scheduled for July 22-29 in Berlin, Germany.

This year's World Youth Championships, which have been held biannually since 1990, will feature 48 countries -- a dramatic increase from the 29 that competed at the 2004 event in Guam.

"There definitely are a lot more good players now," said Haggerty, a 21-year-old Weimar, Calif., native who has been a part of Junior Team USA since 2004. "We should be the deeper, more experienced team there. However, we can't take anything for granted."

Haggerty will be joined by fellow Junior Team USA members David Lange, 23, of Stevensville, Mich., Ivan Miyasato, 23, of Aiea, Hawaii, and Matt O'Grady, 19, of South Amboy, N.J.

Nation, a 22-year-old Miami native, will be joined by Amanda Burgoyne, 21, of Newport, Minn., Samantha Linder, 20, of Winter Haven, Fla., and Michelle Quirk, 21, of Roseville, Calif., on Junior Team USA girls' side.

Nation, the women's collegiate Player of the Year from the University of Central Florida last season, helped lead Junior Team USA to the girls team gold medal in 2004. She also took home silver medals in doubles and Masters as Junior Team USA captured eight medals -- the most among any country competing.

"We need to go into this open-minded," said Nation, who recently finished tied for 32nd at the USBC Queens and won three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur titles from 2003-05. "We want to win gold, but we know it's not going to be an easy task. We definitely have a challenge out there."

Haggerty, the men's collegiate Player of the Year the past two seasons at Fresno State, brought back a silver medal in boys doubles from the 2004 World Youth Championships. He believes experience in a team environment will end up benefiting Junior Team USA's representatives, seven of whom have college bowling on their resume.

"Having team experience will help us out," Haggerty said about Junior Team USA, which also features six multi-year team members. "We can make moves off each other and communicate much more easily since it is routine for a lot of us. This is my last opportunity on Junior Team USA to win some medals, so I'm pretty hungry."

The 2006 World Youth Championships, which will be held at the 46-lane Bowlingcenter Schillerpark, will feature nearly 400 athletes representing 48 countries. It consists of five disciplines (singles, doubles, team, all-events and Masters). Individual totals from singles, doubles and team are combined to determine the all-events winner. The top 16 in all-events also advance to the best-of-5, single-elimination Masters play on July 28-29.

The United States has earned 56 medals throughout World Youth Championships history (16 gold, 26 silver and 14 bronze). Past U.S. competitors at the event include notable PBA stars Tommy Jones, Kelly Kulick, Robert Smith and Patrick Healey Jr. as well as Shannon Pluhowsky (2006 USBC Queens champion), Lynda (Norry) Barnes (2005 World Cup champion), Diandra (Hyman) Asbaty (2006 U.S. Amateur champion), Kim Terrell (nine-time professional titlist) and Liz Johnson (first female to make the TV finals of a PBA event).