Prep bowling: Ottumwa seniors win home finale
Jan. 28—OTTUMWA — The Ottumwa High School bowling teams will soon enough be getting back to serious business.
On Thursday, there was almost too much emotion to take things too seriously in what proved to be the final time for 10 bowlers to compete for the Bulldogs at Champion Bowl.
Reiley Freeman, Mason Konrad and Richard Garrett were paired together for the final home dual of the season, helping Ottumwa to a CIML Metro win over Des Moines North as the Bulldogs easily won by well over 1,000 pins with a team score of 2,942. The Ottumwa girls, meanwhile, featured an all-senior varsity line-up for the first time this season with Jaime Hallgren, Lydia Swarney and Taylor King joining regular senior starters Makenzie Fischer and Olivia Pilcher.
Ottumwa maintained a perfect dual record on the girls side, improving to 11-0 overall with a team score of 2,011. Regular starting underclassmen helped the Ottumwa junior varsity girls produce the second-best overall team score at 2,731, just 211 pins behind the OHS varsity boys, with regular starter Hannalee Songer's 411 two-game series standing out as the highest score among all female bowlers in the meet.
"No matter who we're bowling on Senior Day, the seniors will always bowl together," Ottumwa head girls bowling coach Doug Techel said. "When we have seven seniors and five of the seven are junior varsity bowlers, it doesn't matter. We'll bowl all the senior together. They've been to every practice. They've been to every meet. It's kind of a reward for the last night."
The first-time varsity senior starters were able enjoy some high points on the lanes. Hallgren rolled a late strike in the opening game of the day on the way to a 187 series. Swarney made a 21-pin improvement in the second game, finishing with a 229 series. King, on her final roll of the day in the fifth and final baker game, helped push Ottumwa over 2,000 by rolling a strike followed by a bit of a celebratory dance.
Memories like those are what brought out the emotion in many Ottumwa bowlers. Before Fischer posted a 164 average in her final regular-season competition at Champion Bowl, she and her fellow seniors were honored by the program.
"I actually had to go back to the locker room before we started after the ceremony. I'm kind of one of those people that, if I see other people start to cry, I just kind of break down," Fischer said. "It's something I don't want to think about, that I might have bowled for the last time with this program here on these lanes. I know the last time will be coming up."
Olivia Pilcher, who signed her national letter of intent to bowl collegiately at William Penn on Friday at Champion Bowl, led the OHS varsity girls with a 395 two-game series including a 206 second game. Across the lanes, Freeman made a fantastic return from illness to lead the Ottumwa varsity boys with a 222 average including a 234 in his opening game on Senior Day.
"I was just trying to have fun with it," Freeman said. "I just tried to enjoy it. Our parents were emotional during the ceremonies. We were just trying not to cry. Even when you go to state, the goal is to have fun out there bowling with your teammates. Even if you don't win, you don't want to look back and remember that you had a miserable time. Every meet, you want to have fun with it, especially now that we're getting down to the end of the year."
Logan Shoemaker joined Freeman and Singer on the day in the 200-plus average category, rolling a 403 series for the OHS varsity boys with a 216 in the second game. Charlie Handling, bowling in the same group as Shoemaker, posted the third-best scored for the Bulldog boys (12-1, 4-0 CIML Metro) with a 383 series while Garrett and Konrad had to work through their Senior Day emotions as the meet got underway.
"It took me a little bit to bottle up those emotions," Garrett said. "We know that, when one of us our down, the other two will be there to help get us back in a groove. We've been so close like that for the past four years."
Ottumwa learned on Friday where, when and whom against the Bulldog bowlers will be competing in the postseason. The Ottumwa girls will head back to Bowlerama in Des Moines, competing in a Class 3A regional tournament on Feb. 15 starting at 11 a.m. The Ottumwa boys will compete one day earlier, heading to Game Day Lanes inside the Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines for their Class 2A substate meet on Feb. 14 at 10 a.m.
Both Ottumwa bowling teams get back to business on Saturday, Feb. 5, at the Muscatine Invitational. That meet will kick off the final stretch of the season including the CIML Metro conference meet on Feb. 10, the state qualifying tournaments the following week and the Iowa High School State Bowling Tournament being held Feb. 21-23 at Cadillac Lanes in Waterloo.
— Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourierScott.
