Varsity bowler Rosemarie Leonard has her sophomore season ended early after throwing her teammate down the lane during a meet against rival Colonia High School. 

Early in the 2021-22 bowling season, Woodbridge High School and CHS met at Majestic Lanes. Nearing the end of this meet, Rosemarie stepped up to the lane to take her turn and was faced with the frustration of knocking down all but one pin.

Then, in a supposed bout of anger, she grabbed the closest thing to her and threw it in an attempt to knock down the last pin. That “thing” happened to be a fellow WHS bowler, who has asked to remain anonymous. 

“Honestly, I’m disappointed in her, but not surprised. She can get kind of angry like that. I just wish I hadn’t been standing there,” the anonymous victim said.

Other observers chimed in with more sympathy for Leonard. “You never know what she’s going through. I get that it was a little violent, but is that really enough for the school to end her season” a friend of Leonard’s who was watching the match said. 

Leonard herself has been very vulnerable. She’s explained what she went through at the time that brought her to these actions. 

“I just have such a passion for bowling. I practice so hard day after day, so to have just one pin stay standing… It filled me with so much rage,” Leonard said.  

She also gave some insight into some mental health and at-home struggles that brought her frustrations to a head. 

“The day before the meet my mom was yelling at me for not putting my dishes in the dishwasher. It just made me so sad because she didn’t even consider the other things I have to do. Like, I needed to take a nap, I was so tired after  practice,” Leonard said, tearing up. 

Though some of the factors that brought her to her outburst were out of her control, Leonard has expressed sincere regret about the whole situation, as well as promising to discuss her impulses in therapy to try to resolve the issue. 

This one-time event was a spur-of-the-moment, an emotional impulse that, for such a talented, passionate young person, can be seen as just that: something that has and will, only occur once.