With three games into the season for the boys [2-1] and two for the girls [0-2], the bowling teams have much to improve on and look forward to. Seniors Delaney Arthurs and Cody Noel along with head Coach Ronald Baxter believe they need to focus on enhancing their bowling skills as teams while having fun at the same time.

This year the boys bring more experience to the table. Noel has been bowling for eight years before high school.

“[Bowling is] just a fun thing to do,” Noel said. “We don’t really just concentrate on bowling, we kind of have fun while we do it. [I also want to] be a better team player, motivate others to do better [and] win state.”

In order to make it to state, Noel believes they need to stay focused.

“Well [the] seniors are all kind of relaxing this year so we need to keep our head in the game,” Noel said.

Arthurs, being one of the inexperienced bowlers, believes they have much to improve on. Her goal is to personally improve on maintaining her posture while bowling.

“I probably bowled like three times a year so I had like no experience; I just did it for fun,” Arthurs said. “I need to improve keeping my arm straight when you release the ball because sometimes I get too excited and it goes to the side and goes right in the gutter.”

With only three girls on the team, it is difficult for them to fully participate in certain games such as bakers. According to Baxter, a baker is where five bowlers on a team bowl two frames in a ten-frame game.

“When we do the bakers, at the end for two of the rounds we have to do gutters balls so our scores are a lot lower than the other ones but we still have fun so that’s OK,” Arthurs said.

Due to the lack of a five-girl team, the girls must place zeros in substitute of the missing bowlers. This in turn makes it difficult for the girls to win a baker and thus win as a team. Whereas the boys are able to fully compete with a complete team.

“For the boys, I’m looking for success at state,” Baxter said. “For the girls, I’m looking for improvement and that they have fun.”

Despite this setback, the bowling teams have strived to make it less of a competition and more about enjoying themselves.

“I think the team as a whole needs to focus on taking it one turn at a time and not getting too caught up in the big game,” Arthurs said.