When we were last together there were some clouds over the heads of high school bowlers. What impact would the pandemic have on their upcoming season. Would there be a season? Would there be a postseason? Still pulsating in my mind was the look on the face of the young phenom Olivia Miller of Shawnee, both hopeful and fearful that something she had dreamed so long about being a part of, may not occur.
This past Saturday she had two reasons to smile. The first being that she rolled 702 in junior league play at 20th Century Lanes on lanes 17 and 18 no less.
Even bigger for her than the 700 was the knowledge that the clouds had turned to sunshine and the high school season will occur although leaders are still working on how to make the postseason occur.
Oh the 702 of Olivia was on games of 248-207 and 247. Watching her you cannot help but wonder what could happen to the Shawnee and Western Buckeye League record books.
One of my most asked questions by fans of the game are what I feel makes programs like Coldwater and Wapakoneta as strong as they are. Generally I will quickly give praise to the parents, the coaches and the athletic programs of those two schools.
It is greater than that. The fact is clear that if I would have been at Pla-Mor or Wapak on Saturday instead of doing the grandfather thing I would witnessed another reason for the dominance of some schools.
Without question the chances are immense that I would have seen a minimum of 90% of the Coldwater and St Henry teams rolling in junior league play. In fact, I would not be surprised if that number was 100%.
The same can be said for the Redskins of Wapak. The team would have been on the lanes getting some extra work in under the watchful eyes of their coaches in a competitive environment. If you are going to bowl for the Cavaliers or the Redskins you are ‘strongly urged’ to participate in the junior leagues. Any league absences were generally due to conflict with another school sport.
Our Limaland schools have some incredible young bowlers and they work relatively hard on practice days but they are missing a huge opportunity to get even better by competing in junior league play.
During the last two weeks I have seen coaches from Shawnee and Bath interacting with the young people from their schools as well as a couple of former high school coaches that have also coached on the high school level. 20th is also blessed to have Justin and Shelly Sygh who are dedicated in the bowling development of their youth as well as LCC Coach Jim Riepenhoff behind the counter. Westgate is much the same with experienced coaches at every turn.
Sadly when I took a look around on Saturday I saw Miller, two freshmen from Lima Senior High, and or two more possible from Bath.
I think two things that would help would be if the schools would work this season to identify their bowlers – offer them encouragement to compete and advise parents on the existence of junior programs in the area. It would be better yet if the coaches from the schools would ‘strongly encourage’ their bowlers to compete in junior league play. It would be even better if all proprietors would embrace the sport.
It would be easy to dismiss what I am saying, contending that I am promoting my work space. I assure you that such is not the case. The fact is when your children are at the lanes they are around people who care about them. There is also no denying that more and more colleges are developing bowling programs and doors are opening for scholarships.
In two weeks we will take a look at the impact of the pandemic on our bowling world.
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