For the LHS girls bowling team, three years of hard work finally started to pay off.
After taking down 12 different teams in the season opener, the girls continue to succeed. With seven straight wins, the team now has an 8-2 record. This brings pressure for new bowlers, but teammates try to ignore the stress.
“We just tell each other just [to] bowl our games,” junior Kiersten Warren said. “We can’t focus on what everybody else does, because in the end, it’s not how they do. It’s how we do. Some of us do really well under pressure.”
For most, the winning streak adds nothing but positivity.
“I think we look at it as more of a confidence booster than pressure,” senior Zoe Reed said.
The girls began noticing improvements from the beginning of the season.
“Once we beat those 12 different schools, you can’t go down from there, you can only go up,” Warren said.
Extra practice has played a key role in the team’s accomplishments.
“Our teams work on their games outside of the scheduled practice times,” bowling coach Paula Bastemeyer said. “It is that commitment to the sport that has made them the success that they are.”
The bowlers also focus on not just practicing, but turning practice into a loud, intense, meet-like environment.
“Some of us will take turns yelling for each other and cheering to make a lot of noise to kind of get us in that mindset so that we’re kind of used to it,” Warren said.
Despite their extra work, team member still feel the stress when meets get suspenseful.
“Pressure is a big thing in this game,” Warren said. “Everything causes pressure . . . It’s a really big mental game, so you always [have] be focused.”
Senior Rebecca McNeme serves as an example of how to handle the intensity.
“She’s just really focused and she knows the game really well,” Reed said.
When scores decline and girls start to feel the pressure, they look to their teammates.
“We lean on each other,” Warren said. “If someone needs help, there’s always someone there to help them . . . Everyone has someone that they can relate to.”
Reed agrees the constant support is essential.
“Having such good teammates [is helpful] because they are always encouraging whenever I mess up or something,” Reed said. “They are always right there, which is really good to have.”
The girls treat one another as sisters, Warren said.
“The girls have a strong bond,” Bastemeyer said. “They encourage each other at all times and view one another as teammates, not opponents.”
The girls’ team looks at the boys bowling team as family as well. While the boys are also progressing, the girls are breaking the typical achievements of female bowlers. Bastemeyer said bowling isn’t the blue-collar, working man’s sport it’s often portrayed to be.
“Many people view the successful bowler as rolling the heaviest ball very fast with a big sweeping hook,” Bastemeyer said. “The game is more about accuracy and consistency than speed and power.
While our guys on average roll a heavier ball and have higher scores, it is our girls demonstrating the greater success.”
To other outsiders, bowling doesn’t seem like a very difficult sport. Reed said that this is an untrue assumption.
“There’s a lot of strategy and a lot of technique to it when you bowl on a team,” Reed said. “It’s just really technical. I guess people [don’t] realize that it’s harder than it looks.”
Despite the difficulty, some don’t consider bowling a sport at all, said Warren.
“People call ping-pong a sport, so bowling is just like every other sport,” Warren said. “It’s something that people can do for their school or for free time. It is a sport and it takes talent.”
The team is breaking stereotypes with its success this season.
“When people say, ‘It’s not a sport, it’s not a sport,’ you have to tell them, ‘Look at us, look how far we’ve come,’” Warren said. “All of us are breaking that barrier. We’re proving that bowling isn’t something that you just do for fun. It’s something that you’ve got to have heart in.”
Bastemeyer takes pride in the strength the team has shown.
“I am extremely proud of our girls,” Bastemeyer said. “Four of the girls compete in other sports, so they know the discipline required for success. They are bright, planning for college, involved in other school activities such as music, well spoken and excellent representatives of LHS.”
Warren also believes the girls embody the spirit of LHS.
“We’re representing what our school has [to offer] and what our school brings to competition, and so far, we’ve shown that we have heart and passion for the game,” Warren said.
The team hopes to show the competition LHS brings to the table for the rest of the season.
“Ultimately, [we want] to do well at regionals and go to state,” Reed said. “[That] is our biggest goal, and we know that is definitely possible.”