Bombers Bowl Down the Falcons - By Camryn Reynolds
Bombers take out Hanford at their Girl's Bowling match on Wednesday, January 3rd, at their home alley Atomic Bowl. They won in pins and in both individual set frames; however, they lost both baker games. The baker game losses did not sting too much because the Lady Bombers bowled 1757 pins, beating Hanford by 347 total pins.
Going into this match, the girls were a little worried. Their last match was Tuesday, December 19th, and they had a practice over winter break, but most of them hadn't bowled since that match, and some hadn’t even bowled since before the practice before that match. They were supposed to practice on Tuesday, January 2nd. However, there were complications with the bowling alley, and they could not practice that day. This resulted in a lot of nerves and angst from the girls because it had been a while since they could practice.
Before the match, I got to speak with Peyton Gonzalez, a second-year varsity player; "I haven't had any practice personally since before winter break, so my goal is to bowl well in general and keep up my consistency. We want to keep our energy up and not fall to the same level of play as the other team when it gets slow. We should win this match, but we might have a few lower scores due to not practicing. It all should be fine. Our outlook for the rest of the season is to stay determined in our tough matches coming up. We want to keep the team scores up and hopefully be able to have everyone go to districts as a team; that would be the ultimate goal."
Another person I spoke to during the match was Stasha Haynes, Malia Haynes's mother. Maila has been on varsity for four years and has gone to districts. Her mom has been there through it all. She has good insight into previous seasons and some good input for this season. "The girls have worked hard at practices and have been improving yearly. We have a lot of experienced bowlers this year, so it could be our year to go to districts as a team."
High-school bowling games work a little differently. There are two individual matches where each person bowls all ten frames. Then there are two baker matches where all five people bowl in the same set but switch every frame for ten frames, with each person bowling two of the frames.
The Bombers started off strong in their individual matches. The line-up was Peyton, Sierra Ruelas, Miley Lakey, Ali LeMieux, and Malia. Peyton won her match with 166 pins, Sierra won with 146 pins, Miley won with 159 pins, Ali won with 167 pins, and Malia won with 176 pins. This was a superb start and gave the ladies a lead of 276 pins right off the bat. The second round of individual matches had a line-up change, with Ryka Schirm stepping in after Ali had to leave. Peyton, Sierra, Miley, and Ryka won all their matches this round, and Malia lost hers by only one pin. The Lady Bombers were up by 373 total pins at the end of individual rounds. The baker games were a struggle for the girls. They put up a tough battle but did end up losing both baker matches, 129-143 and 125-137. However, this did not hurt the scores much because their total pins still counted toward their final pin score. The final match score was 2-2, with Richland winning in overall pins 1757-1410.
All six girls bowled exceptionally, but two stuck out during the match. Malia and Peyton were very nervous because they hadn't bowled in a while, but their scores were significant, and they did well. The team is doing fantastic as their record is 9-3, and they have chances to rematch the matches they lost soon. Districts seem to be a real possibility this year; hopefully, they will be able to go as a whole team and represent the Bombers.
The next bowling match will be tomorrow, January 4th, at 3:00 p.m. at Spare Time lanes versus Kamikan. This will be their redemption match against Kamiakin, and they are excited about it. Good luck to Bomber Bowling!
