At first it appeared Catholic Central would pull off another upset over the Wayland boy’s varsity bowling team Thursday, but Bryan Franck and Nicholas Couturier led the charge for a come-from-behind 19-11 victory.
Down 10-0 after after losing the first two Baker games (158-169 and 170-184), the Wildcats weren’t ready to give up.
“As coach, I didn’t want this to happen again, losing to a team whose bowlers individually averaged at least 20 pins lower than our boys.,” coach Sherry Miklusicak said. “I pulled the team aside and didn’t say much except ‘I want all 20 remaining points!’ Fortunately, they won all but one of the remaining points.”
“My mentor, girls’ coach Bill Holbrook, offered me some Tums after getting our tails kicked to start the night,” Miklusicak commented. “We started rolling the ball very well and picked up a ton of spares. At the end of the game it was exciting as the boys were dominating.
“It was hard to concentrate on recording the scores because I was drawn to the next pair of lanes as well,” she added. “The girls were on record setting pace and I was struggling to watch both teams.”
Franck, Wayland’s leadoff bowler, was tearing up pins with his new bowling ball and led all bowlers with a 232. Couturier, fourth bowler in the lineupt, set his pins ablaze as well with a 229. The Wildcats took 8 of 9 points in this game and found themselves creeping up on the Cougars, down just 11-8.
“I teased the only bowler who didn’t get his point,” Miklusicak said, “telling him I wasn’t joking, I want all the points!”
This bowler had been struggling with one of his lowest games this year, but he did come back and shoot 198 in the next game.
Franck again led all bowlers with a fine 207 game. Nick Couturier also had a 195.
“Ah, we could all catch our breath as we won 19-11. ”
The coach pointed out, “This was our last league match of the season and we finished with 8 wins and 4 losses. We are currently in 3rd place awaiting the results from this Saturday’s post-season conference at Park Lanes. If we can get it together and take first place on Saturday, it could really make things a bit more interesting!”
