The objective of bowling is simple, roll a ball down a lane and knock down as many pins as possible, but the execution can be very difficult. 

“It's a mental game here,” said Jacob Tirado, a junior bowler at Colonie. “If you get mad at yourself, it’s not going to really help you at all. So you just have to try and stay positive and work through everything, no matter how tough it gets.”

But not for Tirado. Or at least on this January day.

“Everything felt pretty consistent that day,” he said. “So I was like, let's just to keep doing it over and over again and whatever happens happens.”

Tirado and his team were facing their crosstown rival Shaker in a Suburban Council match on Jan. 16. The start was not ideal for Tirado, a 2-4 spare. 

“I messed up. It was on me what happened,” he said. “I was too fast going up to the line. So I told myself slow down and just focus on a better roll off the ball.”

He made the proper adjustments and on his next frame Tirado got a strike. He then scored another and another, before finishing the game with a 290.

“I just kept my mind to what I was doing and trying to repeat everything over again,” Tirado said. 

And he was just heating up. In the second game, Tirado bowled a 300, which is just his fourth ever.

By the third game, Tirado got his fifth. It was another 300 game, which means he got 35 strikes in a row. 

“It was crazy,” Tirado said. “I was in such like a state of shock because I've never thrown back to back 300 games and it's been a little bit since I shot a 300 game. So I was like, that's crazy. It was astonishing to my mind that I did that.”

For those keeping score, Tirado finished the three game series with a remarkable score of 890, which set a new national high school boys record.

“I had no idea what the national record even was,” he said. “I try to stay focus on what I was doing, to try to keep doing the same shot over and over again.”

Colonie also won the match. But that’s pretty much a footnote compared to what Tirado had accomplished, who got into bowling thanks to his dad just three years ago.

“Every time I walk into a bowling alley now, everyone’s like ‘did you shoot 890? And I’m, like, yeah.’ Everyone’s like, 'congrats, great bowling, and keep it up,'” he said.