The Wayland boys’ bowling team competed in the Hudsonville Tournament Saturday that included 10 qualifying Baker games on stringpin lanes.
“Research told me strike percentage would be down 7% and it defintely was,” remarked coach Sherry Miklusicak. “We did see some unique looking spares.
“The boys, as always, have bowled their hearts out. Every one of the 12 teams made it to bracket play .The house was packed and very difficult to move around. It was difficult to determine what place we were in, but we did make it past first round of brackets so that meant we were in the top half.”
The top four qualifying teams had byes the first round and in the second Baker match up the Wildcats faced Zeeland, one of the top four teams, leading the coach to believe they were a little better than the top half.
The local duo of Dominik Baker and Kyle VanEss was were in the 80% range of filling their frames (strikes and spares). Louie Harnish 65%, and the rest were in the 50% range.
“Normally, 50% isn’t something I am happy with, as we are better than that and we need to be,” Miklusicak said. ”Many of our spare attempts were chops or barely misses. We were close and not missing by much.
“The next step is going to come down to increasing our mental toughness and seeing and believing in their time in practice. This team can do that. This team doesn’t crack or give up like we have witnessed so many teams do this year.
“Heck, our last game we put up a 204 game against a Division 1 team!” Wayland won that match over Zeeland 204-203.