After an undefeated season, the girls’ bowling team experienced their first loss at the state meet on March 4.

“We finished 4th place by 27 pins,” senior Hope Wooten said. “That is only three spare pick ups. Three.”

The girls went into the state competition as the most-favored Kansas City area team, but competing against Wichita schools proved to be a feat for the team.

“Wichita is known as ‘bowling country’,” Wooten said. “it that a non-Wichita school doesn’t win state.”

Considering the girls started the season with a fairly new team, some of the girls having not even bowled before, having only one loss all season wasn’t too bad of a feeling.

“Some of the girls would say the low point was at state it was the first time we lost this whole season,” Wooten said. “I see the low point as the beginning of the season, and even then we were winning.”

The start of the season was a new experience for the girls after four varsity members graduated, leaving their performance for the season in question.

“ knew that most of the varsity team would be new to such a competitive level,” Wooten said. “Our main goal was to focus on working as a team and develop a strong team chemistry.”

Despite starting the season with a new team and losing state later in the season, the girls are proud of how they performed overall.

“ an undefeated regular season. district champions, Sunflower League champions, Regional champions and the fourth best team in the state. It doesn’t get much better than that,” Wooten said.

With high expectations to live up to due to past varsity teams, the boy’s bowling team fell short this year, and didn’t qualify for state. With a young team, the boys worked on becoming a team in order to compete as a higher level.

“The team as a whole learned the lesson of how to forget different backgrounds,” senior Branford Harris said. “ how to work as a team to really compete.”

As the season progressed the boys made great strides to complete a successful season for such a young team.

“The high point of the season was the Baker’s meet at Park Lanes,” Harris said. “We had a win that secured us a medal spot.”

Despite the ups and downs of their season, the boys secured a sixth place finish at the Sunflower League meet, and an eighth place finish at the regional competition.
With the young varsity line up and losing few varsity players, hopefully the team will continue to work and qualify for state next year.