The Wayland varsity boys bowling team captured a 28-2 victory over Ottawa Hills Tuesday at Paragon Lanes while the girls’ squad remained unbeaten in dual matches this season with a forfeit win.
The Wayland boys took the first Baker game 146-143.
“Ottawa’s anchor bowler needed the second strike in the tenth frame and threw a beautiful ball and left one pin,” explained coach Sherry Miklusicak.
The Wildcat boys then came back strong in the second Baker game with a 222-165 and were up 6-0, before heading into the individual games, and wound up taking all but two points for the evening.
“The coach’s goal for this week is to pick up our single pin spares,” Miklusicak said. “Tonight we made about 75% of our single pin spares (100% in the Baker games!). It is a great improvement, but I would like to see above 80-85%.”
Highlights were Nick Couturier’s 227 game and Jesse Miling’s 205. Four of the five bowlers’ two-game series were very balanced with all scoring 372-378, meaning all four averaged between 186 and 189.
“On Thursday we face (Hudsonville) Unity Christian and will need our all our bowlers to step up to come away with a win,” Miklusicak said.
The girls will roll against the Crusaders as well, with the action getting under way at 3:30 p.m. at Airport Lanes.
Girls’ coach Bill Holbrook said, “Ottawa Hills has not been able to field a girl’s team this year so the result was a 30-0 forfeit. However, the ladies still had to bowl to get credit for the match. Wayland was short two tonight, which gave some others an opportunity to show what they can do and that is exactly what they did.”
The Lady Wildcats started with two decent Baker Games 151-150=301. In the first team individual game, they fired an 840 and they followed that up with a solid 795. Junior Alicia Sweeney continued her solid bowling with a 190-212=402. Junior Erin Porteous took full advantage of the extra bowling tonight and a brand new ball with a 213-188=401. Senior Lizzy Cobb pitched in with two solid games of 196-148=344 and sophomore Jessica Henderson had a 157.
“What was most impressive tonight is that it can be very difficult to perform at your best when you know the scores don’t matter because you have the win either way,” the coach commented. “It’s easy to just shut it down when it gets a little tough. That is not what happened here though. These ladies put forth their best effort whenever they have a chance to compete, whether it be a starter or someone coming of the bench and making the most of their chances. That is what builds great teams. When one person struggles, the others pick her up.”
The Lady Wildcat junior varsity members bowled in their first head-to-head match as they paced the varsity girls. Some of the highlights for the JV team tonight were freshman Amber Beggs 159-138=297, junior Tiara Vincent 130-108=238 and freshman Devin Bartell 107-116=223.
“There is a lot of improvement on the JV team asth is the first any of them have bowled competitively this season,” Holbrook explained.
