Six school records. Four first-place meet finishes. The bowling team is coming off of a record-breaking season and hoping to continue their success.

“Last year was unbelievable,” Head Coach Michael Degner said. “This year, we’re really trying to take it to the next step. We’re really trying to make [our record] a realistic 8-4, 9-3 somewhere in there, and then ultimately advance to the state tournament.”

At the dawn of their season, Degner believes his team’s greatest challenge might very well be being able to perform on foreign soil.

“Ultimately, it’s going to be a matter of taking it from the City High Colonial Lanes and being able to apply what we’ve learned here and be able to transfer that to a different set of lanes, and then ultimately have all six guys going at the same time,” Degner said. “In this sport, you really can’t be competitive if you only have three or four guys going, you need the entire team.”

While the boys team has their eyes on the state meet, the girls are looking for improvement anywhere they can find it.

“As a team we want to get over 2200 altogether at a meet. But for me it’s just bowling over 200. [In order to do that}, I need to hit my pocket and my team needs to get their head in the game,” Emily Wilkins ‘18 said.

Wilkins and her team have been struggling to fill their roster. One meet, several boys were needed to bowl for the JV squad in order to compete. Although Coach Degner acknowledges this year might not be easy for the girls team, he remains optimistic for the future.

“Getting these kids to have fun, learn to bowl the right way, to learn the rules of the game is where we’re at right now on the girls side of things. Hopefully in years to come, we can improve on that,” Degner said.

Degner believes the long-term success of his program begins with the athletes carrying the lightest bowling balls.

“It starts with the youth program, we’re really hammering that home. We have to get a youth program established,” Degner said. “If you go up to Cedar Rapids, every one of those centers up there has a strong youth program, whereas here our youth program is something we’re trying to build and get more younger kids in.”

Senior bowler Andrew Franz has experienced the value of starting young firsthand.

“I’ve been bowling since kindergarten. Since then, I’ve been able to repeat the same thing over and over. Being consistent is a big part of improvement, just doing the same thing over and over again, and once you figure it out you can just keep doing it right.