Olivia Hanigan
Sugar Beet staff reporter
The GCHS bowling team competed in the WAC tournament at Garden Bowl on February 14th, 2019. They came out on top, winning a total of 83 points for the GCHS WAC standing. Great Bend came in second with 53 total points throughout the season, Dodge City came in third with 36 points, and Liberal came in fourth with two points.
“Overall, the WAC tournament went really well. Girls went in and did exactly what I expected them to do. They swept all the points. The boys went in and tied with Liberal for second and were able to pull away from them throughout the day, which I was very happy with,” Mr. Nichols, head bowling coach, said.
The girls were able to take first place, and the boys took second to liberal. Both boys and girls also had several WAC ranked players. On the girls side, Alexis Leon took sixth, Ryleigh Whitehurst finished fourth, Holly Bridges took second, Karly Larson placed fifth, and Angelina Leeper took home first. On the boys side, Brayden Bicket finished sixth.
Several GCHS bowlers received WAC awards as well. Angelina Leeper received the award of conference player of the year and Brayden Bicket made first team all WAC.
“I was very happy to make first team all WAC because it was something I have been working towards for a long time and has been my main goal for the last four years,” Bicket said.
The bowlers are now looking ahead to regionals and state and hoping they can make the adjustments they need to go far.
“Concentration and making good shots and filling frames are definitely things we need to work on. We’ve always been a team that shoots a lot of strikes but we don’t shoot spares as well as we could so that’s what I’m focusing on and hopefully that will pay dividends in the upcoming tournaments,” Nichols said.
The team is losing many of their senior bowlers, but are hopeful about the underclassmen and their abilities.
“I think state will be a learning experience for a lot of our bowlers,” Bicket said, “I think our freshman and underclassmen will do better than they expect.”
Olivia Hanigan is a trade and health academy junior. You can contact her at hanigano@student.gckschools.com.
Garden City High School 