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The plan is simple. Three strikes away from a perfect game, Jacob Badua has the blueprint laid out. In the 10th frame, the whirlwind action in Schofield Bowling Center’s 46-lane facility comes to a sudden halt. Silence. Badua chats with his mother, Dar. “The most I’ve seen him have in a row was seven (perfect frames). He always comes up to me and says, ‘I missed it’ and I’ll say, ‘You got it.’ This time it was his last frame.” Jacob, the perfectionist, longs for the perfect game. The Campbell freshman shows no fear, but his words can range. “He said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t feel it.’ I said, that’s good. You’re not overthinking,” Dar said. He hits the pocket cleanly, pins go flying and the first strike of the 10th frame is in the books. Badua lines up again. His approach is always measured, in a rhythm neither fast nor slow. His two-handed release is smooth. “I remember I got the first strike. It was perfect,” he said. Badua was two strikes away from the ultimate. Proving he is actually human, the second roll of the 10th frame was not what he wanted. “The second strike I thought I threw it bad,” Jacob said. No matter. All 10 pins explode for another strike. Even the little thoughts and actions between each roll are strategic, at least for an elite bowler. “After that, that’s when I realized what was happening. I started talking to my friend. I needed something to distract me,” Badua said. “My dad said when you’re on the second strike on the 10th frame, go back to Mom and high-five her.” Mom was ready. “Dad said, if you get a strike, you have to hug your mom,” Dar said. “That’s what one of the pro bowlers did, go hug his wife, just to clear his mind.” The strategy did not include this factor: By this point, the space adjacent to lane 44 was flooded with spectators. Many were fellow bowlers. Some were regulars. Badua couldn’t make a path to his mother. “Dad tried to get him to come to me, and I said, ‘No,’” Dar said. Instead, Jacob sent his mother a long-distance high-five. “I said, go bowl, and he got the (second strike),” she said. Sometimes, the best-laid plan is less than perfect. Badua delivered the final blow. Pocket perfect. Perfect game. Pandemonium at Schofield. Lane 44, forever the place where Jacob Badua achieved perfection. “It was kind of a blur. I don’t even remember. After I shot it I walked off and hugged my mom. Everyone around the bowling alley was giving me high-fives,” Badua said. Video footage shows a calm, confident Badua delivering the strike, turning and walking back like it was another practice session of any day, any month of the year. His longtime personal coach, Jody Yamamoto, saw the final frame from a distance. He loves helping bowlers but has a reluctance for crowds. He stayed near the middle of the alley, watching from afar. “He turns and walks back. All he did was kind of smirk, and that’s it,” Yamamoto said. “He looked like he threw a gutter ball.” Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025, a day for the ages in OIA bowling. Campbell outscores Nanakuli. Badua’s final numbers: 245/300/209. A 754 series. The perfect game is not uncommon in junior bowling and adult leagues. Yet, the bowling community is scratching its head collectively trying to recollect the last 300 game in high school varsity competition. In 2016, Mililani freshman Michael Weyl posted a 299 in league play. “In the last 17 years, I never saw a 300 in the OIA,” league bowling coordinator and Pearl City athletic director Reid Shigemasa said. “Our coach (Millie Gomes) mentioned that the Leilehua coach said this might have occurred more than 25 years ago.” That’s an era when life was much more manual. Bowlers would use pencils to write on scoresheets at the lane table. Pinball machines were still common, and $1.50 burgers were the norm at the nearly 40 bowling alleys on Oahu. Now, there are just two public alleys. One is Barbers Point Bowling Center, where the Campbell Sabers practice twice a week. “I knew he was going to do it because he wanted it so badly,” Campbell assistant coach Diana Maglangit said. “It was just meant to be. He was in a zone.” On Thursday, Badua and his brother were back in school, back to normal. No fuss, no fanfare, no splash. He is the first high school bowler in Hawaii in ages to record a perfect game, but even in this age of instant social media, Badua’s achievement is basically on the down low. His dream is to bowl in college — Mount Mercy or Wichita State — then pursue a pro bowling career. It starts, of course, with academics. Badua has a 3.750 grade-point average — he tracks it to the thousandth of a point as most honor-roll students do — but downplays the numbers to some extent. “As long as I get passing grades,” he said. Well, yes and no, young Jedi. The force is with you. Is perfect storm the right phrase for the place Jacob Badua inhabits? Maybe he is simply in the sweet spot. Maybe not. The one word that is clearly correct: obsession. Badua played flag football and baseball at 5, following the footsteps of his older brother. His mother wasn’t a bowler. His father enjoyed casual bowling with friends after high school — John Sr. played volleyball at Radford — but stopped after the children were born. When John Jr. began with junior bowling at 9, Jacob tagged along. Eventually, though John Jr. was a good bowler, his interest waned. Jacob, however, wouldn’t stop asking his father about the next trip to the lanes. “He’s the opposite. He’ll bowl and practice no matter what,” John Sr. said. Over the next few years, Jacob had traditional form, bowling with one hand, learning from youth coaches Kyle Yoshimoto and Trent Ichimura. While his brother played with the varsity as a freshman, Jacob was always in a lane nearby. Three years younger, and as hungry as anyone in the building. “Jacob is the same age as my son and they bowl in club leagues on Saturdays,” Campbell coach Wayne Aquino said. “I was really excited when he came to high school. He is an awesome kid. Super humble.” In 2023, before Jacob was in seventh grade, the family planned a summer trip to the Junior Golds national tournament in Indiana. Jacob had tinkered for fun with a two-handed release, imitating pro bowlers like Jason Belmonte. “He told us he wanted to switch to two hands. This was one month before Junior Golds,” Dar recalled. “We said, no, you can’t do that.” However, Jacob had put immense thought into it. “My dad just wanted me to keep on bowling. He said, ‘Whatever makes you continue,’” Jacob said. Campbell assistant coach Daniel Maglangit rolled three 300 games back in the day in adult leagues and remains a hardcore fan of the sport. “Osku Palermaa from Finland, he bowled with two hands. Then Jason Belmonte from Australia, and local kids started trying it. You can create more spin. If you’re athletic, you can execute shots more consistently. I tried it, but I’m not flexible enough,” he said. That’s part of the reason why Badua’s mastery of the technique is rare. “Considering how young he is, his physical game, I didn’t have to touch. He already has his physical coach, so I focus on choosing our balls, where we stand and how we adjust to the lane. As he gets older and stronger, it’ll get even better,” Maglangit said. Badua is a student of the game, right down to the surface. He checks on the oil patterns of the sites that host OIA matchups. He studies, practices and repeats the process the way a scientist would. “They post the oil pattern that we use at different alleys. You can make your own as a bowling alley,” he said. “I’ve seen people make their own. There’s guys making new patterns and making it harder every time.” Maglangit notes that every inch of a lane matters. “Two-handed bowlers love (an oil pattern) that’s longer, 40 to 45 feet. One-handers like 35 to 37 feet. The lane is 60 feet. That’s where the science of bowling comes into play. The amount of friction is 21 feet now. It was 15 when I was in high school. The balls are not going to hook as much,” he said. The variance of oil patterns mean testing out every ball in the bag is a must for most elite bowlers. “If I bring six balls, one of them might catch,” Maglangit said. “Jacob has the drive to get better and better. I’m having so much fun teaching him how the lane works.” He is practical, maybe even frugal. Definitely wise. Badua refuses to spend extra money on brand names, has a distaste for hype. His favorite class is math. Switching to a two-handed release was logical for him. The data was clear at the pro level. Imagine being on the forefront of two-handed shooting in another sport: basketball. Rick Barry was a fantastic free-throw shooter, hitting 89.3% for his career with the so-called “granny shot” style. Yet, most professional basketball players refuse to use it, even if it would increase their accuracy — and salaries. “As a two-hander, I get way more control over the ball,” Badua said. “You also have to worry about the two hands making (extra) contact. You could make more mistakes. The only way is to keep practicing.” Junior Golds was approaching in the summer of 2023. Jacob had suffered with constant cuts to his right hand. A two-handed release still means gripping the ball with two fingers of his right hand in the holes. The pain was getting worse. Badua thought about quitting for a day or two. This bloody mess was not sustainable. “I hurt my middle finger. I went through a lot of coaches and ball drillers. We spent a lot of money trying to re-drill balls,” he said. “When I was bowling at a tournament, somebody’s dad saw the problem.” That somebody was Mike Asuncion. “One of my friends texted me on a Saturday,” Yamamoto recalled. “He said there’s this kid and his fingers are all cut up. He sent a picture. His fingers bleeding. He said the kid’s hand is shaking.” Yamamoto has spent decades working with bowlers and their equipment. No advertising. Strictly word of mouth. Always a small circle. “I’m thinking it’s the pitches in the holes. It was really bad. I can’t diagnose anything without looking closely,” he said. “His mom took him to a shop. A few months later, Jacob texted me.” Yamamoto is big on direct communication. If a bowler won’t communicate with him, he normally won’t do any work with them. “He texted saying, we tried the pitches and it’s still getting cut up. He came to my house and we did some changes,” Yamamoto said. “He said, ‘It’s better.’” Badua remembers that stage of his young career clearly. “First thing, he told me to give him a couple of balls. He would fix the pitches. He looked at my hands. He widened the holes, but it was a pitch issue,” Badua said. “When you drill a ball, most people think the hole goes straight down when you drill it, but you actually drill at different angles.” All the years of practicing and working with various coaches showed. Yamamoto met with Jacob and his family at Schofield. “I had never seen him bowl before, but I said, this kid is pretty good. When you have a kid who can throw 100 mph, he’s pretty good. He was just raw. So we fixed his bowling balls,” Yamamoto said. Badua was fairly persistent. “He said, ‘Can I come back and practice with you guys?’ If you want help, you have to ask because I don’t offer. So we started slowly. He’s a kid of few words, but he kind of knows. He has intuition,” Yamamoto said. It is a transformative moment when Yamamoto senses an authentic desire to improve in a young bowler. Many of his past bowlers went on to compete at the college level, but he has no desire to expand the circle. “The kid has to want it, not the parent. Your kid has to ask me. He or she has to buy in, not you. When you coach, you have a different perspective. My kids, I always told them, you want help, you have to create opportunities. That’s why there’s so few that I help. The kids that I help are 100% great kids. They have that heart in them. Their ego is not big,” Yamamoto said. By the time the Baduas went to Indiana, hope and healing were restored. Jacob was still in the early stages of switching to a two-handed release. As an incoming seventh grader, he usually hit the 150s and 160s while the top bowlers at Junior Golds regularly hit 180 and 190. “I felt pretty bad comparing my scores to other people. It was a huge difference,” he recalled. “But I gave myself some grace because I was basically learning a new technique.” Yamamoto may be old school, but he knows risk and results, too. He had two 300 games during his bowling days. A two-handed style could work. “I’ve seen a lot. People saying something can’t be done and someone else comes along and proves them wrong. If you want to do it one way, you’re going to put more effort into that, so let’s try and build it that way,” he said. “Nobody knew the potential for it and Belmonte came along and becomes the best. There’s a PBA guy who throws it from his chest.” Badua has an extensive arsenal, but when they got to 12 balls re-drilled by Yamamoto, he was content. “Uncle Jody has magical superpowers. I would say magical because he somehow fixes it right there,” Badua said. Last summer, a big tourney in Detroit was the destination. “He hit the 180s, but for him, that wasn’t enough,” Dar said. “Every year the kids on the mainland get older and their averages are higher, so our boys weren’t high enough to make the cut. The main thing is they’re improving from three and six months earlier.” Since Badua stepped foot on the campus of James Campbell High School, his process has remained consistent. Iron has sharpened iron. Badua is aware that the ILH’s top boys bowler is also a freshman: Riley McMann of Hawaii Baptist has a 215 average. That is two pins higher than Badua’s. The OIA championships are on Wednesday, and the Hawaii Army National Guard/HHSAA State Championships follow on Nov. 6-7. Both events will be at Schofield. “So far, five of the boys made it to OIAs,” Badua said. JACOB BADUA Campbell bowling • Freshman Badua bowled a perfect 300 game last Wednesday when Campbell and Nanakuli met at Schofield Bowling Center. This is believed to be the first perfect game in OIA play in at least 25 years. They said it: Campbell assistant coach Diana Maglangit: “Jacob has matured a lot. If he throws a bad shot, he doesn’t get upset about it. He regroups instead of letting it get him down. A lot of kids these days, if they don’t strike, they get mad. He’ll get frustrated, but he’ll regroup. He’s disciplined like his brother, John.” Jacob’s father, John Badua Sr.: “I’m amazed at how much Jacob has grown up. How much determination he has. Always willing to practice. His (youth) coaches told him to focus and practice on one thing at a time, so one day, he works on something and the next day he works on something else.” Jacob’s mother, Dar Badua: “I like watching his determination. He never gives up, no matter what the situation. He might say, ‘I’m going to lose,’ but he has this drive in him. He sets goals for himself even if he doesn’t tell us. If he doesn’t beat it, he doesn’t get down on himself. That’s what happened with this last game. We have this love-hate relationship. I just say simple things and he vents to me. He’ll say, ‘You don’t know what this is like,’ but he still comes to me. ‘I think I missed my mark.’” Teammate Jace Oliveira-Santiago: “The first time I had a conversation with Jacob was the first day of high school tryouts. We were joking around about bowling and how the (oil) pattern was kinda hard. The funniest memory I have with Jacob is when we were talking about how his brother, John, just goes up and throws the ball. Hitting the pocket every time. Jacob’s a good friend because he would always give advice when I threw a ball wrong or used the wrong ball.” Favorite hobbies: Bowling, fishing, playing ukulele, (casual) volleyball Top 3 movies or shows 2. All Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” shows 3. Fishing or bowling on YouTube Top 3 homemade food 1. Dad’s fried rice 2. Dad’s ground beef curry 3. Dad’s steak with mashed potatoes Top 3 foods outside home 1. Wagyu over rice bowl (Japan) 2. Tuna mayo hand roll (Japan) 3. Melon soda from Tokyo “We went there in June. I wanted to see what kind of bowling balls they have.” Top 3 music artists 1. Kapena – “Never Gonna Give You Up” 2. Daniel Caesar – “Blessed” 3. Fiji – “Jowenna” Favorite athlete: Ben Pettit “He was the No. 1 youth bowler in New Zealand. I think he bowls at Wichita State now. He bowls with two hands. He’s super consistent, and the way he throws the ball, he’s really smooth.” Funniest teammate: Jace Oliveira-Santiago “The way he says stuff at the right time, it’s funny.” Smartest teammate: John Badua Jr. “Whenever I ask him anything, he always has the answer. In bowling, he knows everything that’s going on, but he doesn’t really express his knowledge.” Favorite teacher: Mrs. (Koryne) Acob, Ilima Intermediate School, eighth grade. Favorite class: Math, eighth grade. New life skill: Financial literacy. Being smart with my money. Bucket list: “Have a talk with a very wealthy person and asked what they learned in their life and how they got there.” Time machine: 2017 “During 2017 there was something about my house that just felt good. Like there was always an adventure or something to do.” Youth sports: Flag football, basketball, bowling, golf Shoutouts: “To mom, dad, brother, sister, coach/uncle Jody (Yamamoto), coach/uncle Kyle (Yoshimoto), coach/uncle Trent (Ichimura), Thomas Onodera, coach Daniel (Maglangit).”
