On Wednesday, the girls bowling team landed its first blow of the season.

“Wednesday’s match meant a lot to us,” sophomore Olivia Smith said. “We were able to finally put some points up on the board and have something to be proud of.”

Olivia and senior Sammie Wing were the catalysts in FHC’s highest-scoring match up to this point. Both combined for thirty percent of their team’s 901 points in a contest that could be mistaken for a devastating 27-3 loss. As lopsided as the score was, head coach Terry Metzner, who understands how vastly outnumbered his team was against Northview, believes that the end result of Wednesday’s match doesn’t tell the entire story.

“Although the girls lost, I saw a totally different team out there,” coach Metzner said. “Sammie Wing had her best score of the season, and many others were hitting their spares consistently versus a team that had four more girls than they did.”

Unlike Monday’s match, the boys, on the other hand, came out flat-footed in the baker games; they lost the first baker game 191-181 and the second one 190-138. So before the individual rounds began, the Ranger boys were running up an already steep hill to catch the Wildcats.

“We didn’t start out the way we wanted to,” Korbin admitted, “which probably ended up hurting our chances in the individual rounds as well.”

In fact, only three FHC Bowlers won their individual matchups. Those three bowlers were seniors Korbin Thompson, Zach Guikema, and junior Peyton Price, who bowled a team-high score of 202.

Without much production, the boys fell 26-4 to, in all fairness, a persistent powerhouse in the OK White in Northview.
“The loss is a good example of why bad baker games early can affect the end result,” Zach said. “We have to be better early on next time.”

That “next time” comes in two weeks, on the last Tuesday of December, when the boys and girls make the trip out to Grand Rapids Christian’s home alley, Park Center Lanes, for the Christmas Baker Tournament. All eyes will be on coach Metzner to see if he can rally his teams to their first and last wins of 2021.