Wayland High School senior Bella Harnish was individual champion Saturday at Hudsonville Bowling Invitational and the team placed third among the 12 competing.
Harnish rolled 200 and 255 games to finish with a 455 and take first place. Teammate Kadence Bottrall finished seventh with her two games adding up to 370.
The Wayland boys’ varsity team bowled short of several team members because of band festivals, so many jayvee bowlers got some varsity experience in the Hudsonville Invitational.
The Lady Wildcats finished the day with 2,534 pins. Zeeland, the only team to beat them this season in a dual match, won the tourney with an even 3,000 and Hudsonville Unity Christian was runner-up at 2,595.
Harnish and Bottrall have won a slew of medals thus far in their careers on the lanes for Wayland, which enters the next week undefeated in O-K Gold Conference dual matches.
The Wildcats’ match games totaled 728 and 759, about average for Wayland.
“We didn’t bowl poorly, but there were some very good division 1 schools present,” said coach Sherry Miklusicak.
One highlight of the day was freshman Jayse Henkel, who rolled the high game of the day with a 189. He opened in his first two frames (“definitely first big game jitters,” the coach said). Then in the third frame he threw a 6-7-10 split and that is a big one – which he proceeded to pick up. He then doubled and filled the rest of his frames.
Junior veteran Chandler Caruso (173-158) anchored and went 9 for 10 in the Baker game portion. Ashton Kasprowicz notably covered 8 of 10 frames in the lead-off position.
Kyle VanEss, Carter Decker, Charles Caruso and Wil Dewing (154) gained some more experience or saw their first appearance.
