By Shreya Thakkar

News Editor

The varsity girls’ bowling team competed at the Rock Island invite on Nov. 30 to start off their season. Placing ninth out of 16 schools, the 2012 state qualified team was disappointed with the results.

According to sophomore Cassidy Selep, the results did not meet her expectations.

“We did not do as well as we had hoped,” Selep said. “We all just had kind of a rocky day. We did OK for our first time, but definitely not up to our potential.”

Bowling coach Greg Troyer felt the same way.

“The girls got tired and frustrated,” Troyer said. “It was a long day for all of us. So you know it’s over, it’s done with, [and] we didn’t do well, but who cares.”

Contributing to the team’s disappointing loss was also the lack of oil on the lanes, an amount that the girls were not used to, according to senior Abby Owens. The Beverly Lanes bowling alley that the team practices on are oiled more than the lanes that the girls competed on at the Rock Island invite. Many of the girls on the team were thrown off their game by the dry lanes at the invite.

“It’s a really really new team, and we need to get used to how we bowl as a unit,” Owens said. “There are some things that we can work on.”

According to Owens, the girls need to learn how to play well together and not just as individuals.

However, the team simply took the meet as a learning experience, and came back strong with a victory against Conant on Dec. 2 by winning two out of the three games. The third game was very close too, and narrowly lost it by just 11 pins.

According to leading scorer freshman Arie Upshaw, the team worked hard to correct mistakes they made on Saturday.

“To do better, we knew how we shot and exactly what to work on,” Upshaw said. “Because we knew what we needed to work on, we did a lot better in the MSL”

Selep agrees with Upshaw, and going forward, Selep sees further improvement for the team. Her goal is for the team to score at least a 1000, meaning each of the five players would have to bowl at least a 200.

However, Selep has a bigger vision for the team’s success.

“Overall, our huge goal is to make it to state again because we do have three returning varsity players and five seniors in total. We’ve got a really strong varsity.”

Owens shares the same goal, and believes it could happen from the improvement she already sees in the team.

“Moving forward, I think if we work as hard as we can, we can bowl really well, and bowl into state,” Owens said.