The Wayland girls’ varsity bowling team Wednesday absorbed its first defeat of the season, 21-9 to Zeeland. The boys’ team also lost to Zeeland, 29-1.

“”We knew we would have a close match today, but I felt really good going into the match as we had a very successful practice yesterday,” remarked girls’ coach Mike Omness.

Wayland was down the after the first Baker game but bounced back and took the second Baker and the total as well and went up 6-4. But the Lady Wildcats lost 8 of 9 possible points in the first match. They started stronger in game two, but ran out of juice at the end of the game.

“This very young team didn’t give up and that says a lot about our future,” Omness said.

Sophomore Kendra VanKoevering took both of her points and freshman Bella Harnish led both boys and girls with a 180 game.

The Wayland girls are now 3-1 in overall matches this season.

Boys’ coach Sherry Milkusicak said, “We had one of our best Baker games this season so far, but Zeeland threw a 247 game against us. After that it was a long evening for the boys.”

The Wildcat boys had four games less than 100 tonight.

“That is pretty humbling for the boys (and the coach),” Miklusicak said. “We knew Zeeland had scores that were anywhere from 300 to 350 pins higher than we have had per game so we set some very small and makeable goal. Sadly, didn’t come anywhere close to them.”

A gimpy Dillon Smith took off his walking cast and bowled for the first time since his injury.

“He didn’t do too bad considering he was basically missing his push off and driving ability and led our team,” the coach said. “We are looking forward to a couple of tournaments this weekend as things can only get better.”