The Wayland boys’ bowling team Wednesday afternoon pulled out a thrilling come from behind 17-13 victory over Grand Rapids West Catholic.
“This has to be the closest match we’ve ever been in,”exclaimed coach Sherry Miklusicak. “The Cougars are coached by some phenomenal ladies. One is a professional bowler and the other is her mother who coached her. They immigrated from Ukraine and now reside in Muskegon.”
In Baker game one, Wayland only shot a 142 game to West Catholic’s 210.
“It was not hard to appreciate how badly the Falcons wanted this,” Miklusicak said. “They were full of smiles and really good sports!”
Catholic put together back-to-back good games, taking Baker game two 191 to 167.
“We just had too many opens,” Miklusicak said. “Dominic Baker was the bright spot, as he filled all four of his frames in our first two Baker games.”
At the end of the Baker games Wayland was down 10 to 0, an unfamiliar place.
“We were in pretty deep and had a tough deficit to climb out of,” the coach remarked. “We would have to take 16 of the next possible 20 points in order to win.”
In match play game one: since it wasn’t at Rock ’N Bowl, the Wildcats needed a little adjusting because of a number of 4-7 splits on fairly decent shots.
“I know that means that our rolls were just a little too aggressive,” Miklusicak explained. “I had to chat with (girls’) Coach Eric (Bottrall) and we moved the boys a little bit to try to accommodate for that which seemed to work.” Wil Dewing took his point 167 to 140; the combination of Raynie Arendsen and Jayse Henkel took their point 148 to 144; Louis Harnish took his 187 to 158, and Kyle VanEss won his as well, 179 to 176. Taking four points also allowed the ‘Cats to take team total pins 844 to 795.
So Wayland took 8 out of 9 possible points, but was still down 11-8 and needed at least eight more points in game two.
“Midway through the second game we were kind of flat and found ourselves down at least 100 pins,” the coach said. “This was looking pretty grim, but there was a bright spot. We had a couple guys start stringing several strikes near the end of the match.”
Catholic’s first two bowlers opened in the ninth frame, so Wayland had a little room to gain on them.
Jayse Henkel strung five – Louis Harnish probably had a nine or a 10 bagger going and Kyle VanEss had quite a few strikes as well.
Harnish had an amazing 235 game and VanEss anchoring rolled a 257.
The Wildcat boys managed to pull it out in the ninth and 10th frames for the comeback win 17 to 13.
“That score does not show how close this game truly was, right up until the end,” Miklusicak said. “We’re so very proud of these guys! They work hard every day. It’s a really good experience today to know that you can have your backs against the wall and you can fight and fight and fight and you can come back and you can still win.”
Meanwhile, Wednesday, Lady Wildcats got back on track as they defeated West Catholic 24 to 6.
“Our ladies had a better day with spares,” exclaimed coach Eric Bottrall.
High games by Jasmine Ortiz 205, Haven Baker 157, Faith Rabideau 155, Brooke Trumbull 141, Lily Keech 128 and Ava 126.
Up next, the Lady Wildcats travel to Rockford to bowl their favorite opponent, Cedar Springs.
“There is a lot or respect and love between our teams,” Bottrall said. “We miss having Cedar in our conference. They might be our competition, but they are like an extended family to us.” Looking forward to our girls bowl with them today!”
The Lady Wildcats now are 6-1 in the O-K Gold Conference standings and the boys are 5-2.
