Bella Love Castillo is on a roll.
The now 15-year-old two-handed bowler has racked up two more tournament wins — the Junior Gold Championships, which will be broadcast at 5 p.m. Aug. 6 on CBS and the Queens Bowling tournament in Athens, Texas.
The Junior Gold was in Detroit. Her dad, Brian, said they will travel to Wichita, Kan., in October for the PBA Junior National Championships.
Bella said she is sure they will head to smaller tournaments in between.
At the Junior Gold tournament, Castillo, the No. 1 seed, took the win over No. 2 Trishna Desai of Nesconset, New York, 197-157, according to the BowlTV website.
The Bowl TV website reported that more than 3,100 United States Bowling Congress Youth members competed at Junior Gold 2024, traveling across eight bowling centers in the Detroit area in hopes of winning a piece of the approximately $500,000 scholarship fund, making a run at a national title and claiming a spot on Junior Team USA.
“That experience was very awesome,” she said of the Junior Gold Championships. “I’ve been dreaming of that moment since I was 8 years old when I first found out about Junior Gold. I was like oh my gosh, I want to win that so bad. I worked forever and I made the show one year and then the next year I lead it and lost and then this year, I made the show and so it was like a crazy accomplishment for me.”
“It’s like an all-time high. I went through a phase where I felt like I always got second and then this year, I felt like I’ve been on an EJ Tackett streak where you win so many tournaments. It’s overwhelming, but very exciting,” she added.
The Professional Bowlers Association website says since 2012, Tackett has won 23 PBA Tour titles.
Having bowled for five years, Castillo’s goal is to go pro.
What she enjoyed about the Junior Gold this year was being able to hang out with her friends.
“I don’t get to see them very much, but Junior Gold is the two weeks we get to see each other,” Castillo said.
She added that trying new alleys and new oil patterns on the lanes is fun as well.
Castillo said she doesn’t get tired of the sport.
“There’s so much to bowling. You’re never not learning something,” she said.
“There’s always something to work on in bowling. You go to tournaments and you’re like, wow, you won but you still have a lot to learn and stuff to work on regardless of whether you win or if you lose,” Castillo added.
Brian Castillo said when you’re in Junior Gold, they take four girls and four boys and develop them. When they’re 16, they can go all over the country or the world to compete in world championships for bowling, but you have to be on the USA team.
“When you’re 15, they put you on a developmental team, so she (Bella) was on the Team USA developmental team last year. This year is her second year on it and then next year, she’ll have a chance to make the junior team USA,” Brian Castillo said.
The toughest place Bella has bowled so far is the U.S. Open in Rochester, N.Y.
Brian said this was last June when Bella was 14 and you have to be 16 to bowl in the U.S. Open, so they wrote a petition and sent a resume of all her tournaments to allow her in.
“It has crazy topography and every lane is different, so even if I were bowling on … the easiest pair in the house, it would never be easy. Nothing’s easy in bowling, but the pattern itself didn’t help in any situation. They were flat and it was just so tough,” she said. “I feel like I was bowling on a different pattern or a different lane each shot, so I was constantly moving or trying to figure out something better and it just never really worked out for me,” she added.
Bella said if she wasn’t a bowler she wouldn’t have a chance to travel this much.
“Bowling has taken me to so many new places that I never thought I’d actually go. I’ve met so many new people that I probably wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for bowling. I’m very grateful for the opportunities that have been given to me through bowling. It’s just a crazy opportunity. I think it is just phenomenal,” she added.
Castillo has met bowlers she admires and many have been “so nice” and taken her under their wing to help her, not just in bowling but in life.
“The bowling community is so nice and so great and the pros are just wonderful,” she said.
Bella said there is a lot of competition in youth bowling.
Brian noted that with bowling you’re competing against yourself more than anybody else.
“I think the bowling community is a lot like the golfing community where there are no referees to blame. There’s no opponent; it’s you versus yourself and so when you’re bowling, you’re competing against yourself and then when they’re not bowling and everybody’s just getting along so well,” he added.
In bowling, they cheer for each other and if they beat you, they beat you, Brian Castillo said.
“But you had just as much chance and opportunity to bowl better,” he added.
Bella has a YouTube channel that people can follow her on at youtube.com/@BellaLoveCastillo
