AURELIUS — On any given Saturday, Starlite Lanes is a busy place, bustling with action as youth bowlers take to the lanes.

Darrin Emperato and Ed Brechue serve as junior coaches at Starlite. Emperato said there are 200 youth bowlers hitting the lanes each week.

“We have a wide range of kids here,” Emperato said. “We go from beginners all the way up to high-school (age). Things have picked up this year and we have a few more kids in the program, but we are about the same as we have been most years.”

Brechue, whose own son went through the junior program and is now in the men’s league, has watched the program grow over the years.

From beginners to the more advanced, the focus is always the same for Emperato and Brechue, instilling the fundamentals of the game and helping participants develop a love for the game that will last well beyond junior bowling.

“We are always trying to create more interest,” Emperato said. “If there is more interest, the kids want to bowl better and we are here to coach them and help them get better. And hopefully they will keep bowling. They are very important. They are the ones that are going to grow up and join the adult leagues and keep the sport going.”

With the creation of an Auburn High School bowling team, the fundamentals of junior bowling have taken on another level of importance.

“We have a few kids that are on the high school team,” Emperato said. “That is the highest level they can go. I think that has really helped raise the interest in junior bowling.”

Something Emperato’s son, Brandon, 17, knows as well.

Brandon said that he has been bowling for as long as he can remember.

And when the opportunity to join the high school team came along, he was able to take what he had been learning all these years and take it to another level of competition and personal challenge.

While Emperato and Brechue’s major goals are giving young bowlers a sense of enjoyment for the game, they also try to build up the competitive side of the too.

In November, Emperato and Brechue hosted two tournaments — the second annual Bantam and Prep Singles Tournament and the fifth annual Junior Masters House Tournament.

The Bantam and Prep tournament is designed to give beginning bowlers their first taste of competitive bowling. Emperato said 35 bowlers competed this year.

The Junior Masters House Tournament has much of the same intention its counterpart, but with more experienced bowlers in mind.

It is the same format as the Junior Masters, with the intention of getting Starlite’s young bowlers ready for the advanced tournament. In the boys division, Matt Janusz took first, while Matt Orchard took second. Alexis Hughes took first for the girls, with Racheal Cregan finished second.

Heading into the tournament, Hughes said she didn’t think she would win, but was pleasantly surprised.

Her victory was the product of a lot of hard work with her coaches and since winning, she’s found a new focus to keep improving her game.

“Darrin helped me a lot,” Hughes said. “We worked a lot on strategies. That really helped and I got a new ball. And now we are working a lot to keep improving my game.”