Peninsula High’s girls bowling team looks to finish season strong after slow start

The Peninsula girls bowling team has had a less than ideal start to its season. The team lost its first five competitions and has been working to bounce back from that. Coach Kristy Whitcher is looking to learn from this year and improve for the next season.

“I’m hoping next year we’ll get a little better start because they’ll all be seniors then. I feel a lot better about maybe making districts and state next year. This year we’re still a little behind,” Whitcher said. “We had a really rough start.”

Part of the challenge came from the returning players Whitcher expected to come back not doing so.

“No. 1, all the girls didn’t come back that I was hoping for,” Whitcher said. “It seems like when they get to be juniors and seniors, they start making choices. Bowling wasn’t one of them.”

With that being said, the team did recently beat Shelton, one of the top teams in the league, narrowly, 3-2. Still, Whitcher sees that it is going to be a big challenge to make it to districts as a team even as the team is making progress.

“I’ve had this particular group now for three years; they’re all juniors, so we’re really starting to come alive,” Whitcher said. “We probably won’t make districts as a team, but I should take a couple of bowlers to districts because they’re going to take the top eight outside of the teams that are going.”

Junior Riley Schuller still is holding out hope that the team could pull out a district appearance.

“I feel the season is actually going really well,” Schuller said. “We’re slowly improving, and we have an opportunity to possibly make it to districts as a team now.”

What would it take to get there? A lot of winning.

“We have five more games left and I think there are three of them that we have definitely have to win to make it to districts,” Schuller said.

Even if the team doesn’t make it, there is still a strong chance for Schuller to make it as an individual.

“I would like to go if I would be able to individually qualify,” Schuller said. “From what coach told me, I’m currently on track to possibly going as an individual.”

Her coach had even more praise for Schuller, who she has helped to mold into the competitor she is now.

“Riley is my anchor who is a left-hander who has a lot of talent,” Whitcher said. “She learned the talent. She never bowled before until she came into the program.”

Even with that lack of experience, Schuller is now a force for the team and has made her way to be the anchor position, which is the one who goes last, typically the bowler with the highest average or the best performer under pressure.

Part of her strength comes from her being a strong left-handed bowler, which gives her a slight edge in competition.

“She has a little bit of an advantage because she is left-handed,” Whitcher said. “In bowling, the left-handers have a little bit of an advantage because there are not very many of them, so when they find their shot it doesn’t move much because there is nobody over there squirreling around with their shot. With right-handers, there are a lot more right-handers, your shot gets burned up pretty quickly.”

That isn’t to say that Schuller can’t improve on parts of her game but her coach feels it’s mostly about the mental aspect of believing in herself.

“She really is coming along and we’re working on her mental attitude now because I think she’s got a little bit of the skill now,” Whitcher said. “Now, it’s all about believing that she can do it.”

However, one person cannot just carry a whole group and Schuller hopes to as a team focus on addressing some weaknesses that they have as a team.

“I think what it takes to get there is to focus on working on what we’re not good at yet,” Schuller said. “Many of us have a hard time picking up specific types of spares.”

What does that mean? It means repetition of practicing knocking down the pins they tend to leave.

“A lot of people will have a hard time with the 10 pin on the lane. That always seems to be the hardest for people who are right-handed,” Schuller said. “A lot of people can’t get those pins because they don’t know how to and the best thing to do is to practice it so you can get it.”

This practice has been an enjoyable part of their process for their coach, who has gotten to be for many their first bowling coach.

“All of them are really fun to coach because they came to me pretty raw,” Whitcher said. “It’s been kind of fun to teach them how to bowl not just throw the ball.”

If all this practice comes together, what would it mean for the team to overcome the odds and make it to state? Quite a lot.“It would mean that we are no longer seen as the team that is easily beat,” Schuller said. “If we can get to districts and we can beat everybody, we’ll be able to prove ourselves.”

This story was originally published December 26, 2019 at 6:00 AM.