The last time the Forest Hills Central boys and girls bowling teams went toe to toe with their crosstown rival Forest Hills Northern was—for lack of a better term—ugly. After they lost to them on January 25th, the first thing the boys and girls did when they got home was mark February 22nd with a red marker as the target date for revenge. Up until the end of the 22-8 loss against a well-rounded 5-3 Northern team, head coach Terry Metzner and the boys team were on their way towards that sweet taste of revenge.

“The boys started out really good, but they died down at the end of the match; we just need to start learning how to finish strong,” coach Metzner said.

Reflecting on the 22-8 match, senior strikesman David Whittaker bluntly called his team’s baker game performance “bad” and his team’s individual games performance “pretty good.”

“It was a very close contest because we had some pretty good and close individual games, but we had two bad baker game performances that really came back to hurt us at the end,” David explained. 

Letting the first baker game slip away from their fingers was their first mistake and letting the second one escape their grasp was their last mistake; the Ranger bowlers just couldn’t find the shovel to dig themselves out of their two-baker-game-deep hole. Nonetheless, usuals at the winner’s circle, senior Tommie Payne and sophomore Peyton Price, respectively produced a healthy 216 and 198 to win their individual games and contribute towards their team’s hard-earned 8 points.

Unlike other team-oriented sports, the mantra “next man up” doesn’t necessarily fit the makeup of high school girls bowling because there aren’t usually enough girls to fill in for sick or injured starters. This daunting truth came to fruition this past Monday for the FHC girls bowling team. Without freshman Megan Hackerd, they were forced to rely on freshman Skyler Tierney’s 107 game to carry them to the finish line, and it hurt their final baker and individual game scores, as they ended up losing by a score of 30-0.

Two days down the road on Wednesday, February 24, the FHC boys and girls bowling squads will have to face yet another West Michigan bowling juggernaut in Byron Center. 

“We will go back to the alley to practice Tuesday and the head off to face a tough Byron [Center] team on Wednesday, so we should have plenty of practice time on Tuesday to prepare for them,” coach Metzner said.