Fresh off of a difficult loss to Forest Hills Northern, the Forest Hills Central boys and girls bowling teams had Byron Center on their radar as the next team on their revenge tour. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so head coach Terry Metzner had high expectations for his team to put everything together for their first victory of the season.

“I was excited to see how both teams [boys and girls] would play after our difficult loss to Northern on Monday,” explained coach Metzner.

To Byron Center’s avail, the boys team did not play up to par and suffered a—as senior Tommie Payne referred to it as—”pulverizing” 28-2 loss on Byron’s home turf at Spectrum Lanes.

“It was a pulverizing loss, and I think we’re all tired of losing at this point. We just can’t find a way to put all of the pieces together right now,” Tommie said.

One night it could be sophomore Peyton Price carrying the load, whereas another night it could be junior Joey Spaletto carrying it; the same phenomenon is evident day in and day out on the girls team as well. Last night, it was senior Joshua Allen carrying the load for the boys with individual-game-winning scores of 216 and 197, while freshman Mary Kate Dean notched a 111 not once but twice during the duration of the match.

“Yesterday’s match was easily my best match so far, but I mean it kinda stinks because we lost pretty bad,” a disappointed Joshua described.

Disappointment like Joshua’s wasn’t a rare sight at Spectrum Lanes for the Ranger bowlers, as their revenge tour and schedule keeps on getting more and more difficult to traverse as the season progresses.

Last year, when former head coach Grant Vermeer set the bar high for future FHC bowling teams by saying, “I hope that this season’s team will set the bar for how well we should perform next year, and hopefully we can win our first conference title ever,” he basically went out on a limb to encourage this year’s team to outperform and outshine last year’s veteran trailblazers. So far, Vermeer’s vision has not turned out the way he probably would have liked it to. Approaching the last leg of the season, coach Terry Metzner’s FHC striking emporium might not be looking for wins but rather for respect from their OK White foes. Luckily, the boys and girls have plenty of time to recuperate for their next fixture against the reigning OK White conference champs, the Northview Wildcats, on Monday, March 1st.