The boys and girls bowling teams made it to Districts on Feb. 2. Every team automatically makes it, and then they are put with five or six other groups. After that, the winning team advances to State. This year, the Gretna boys team finished runner-up, making history and bringing home a plaque for the first time ever.
Jonathan Brown is the bowling team’s head coach, and he has been bowling for a long time. It is something that he said he and his family have been doing for a while. Since he had been bowling from such a young age, he said that he had started to get really good at it.
“I have been bowling ever since I was four years old. It was something my family has always done, and so I did it and got really good at it,” Brown said. “I love all sports and have coached quite a few, like baseball, basketball and football. So, when the opportunity of coaching bowling came up, I was extremely excited and wanting to share my knowledge of the game and help athletes get better at bowling.”
Although Brown has only been a coach for four years, three of those years he has been the head coach for the team, and this year they made history.
Senior Grant Barnes joined bowling because one of his friends told him to do it with him. He thought it would be fun, and he did not have anything to do during the winter. Barnes joining the bowling team caused many of his friends to come and join and have a good time.
“I started bowling as a junior, and it was all because my friend Ryan had been doing it for years,” Barnes said. “I was bored in the winter, and I saw a great opportunity to hangout with friends. Shane Huskey came with me that year, then Kohen Burns and Carter Cerny came and tagged along for senior year.”
Every practice provides a range of challenges. With each practice, there are different ways that the pins will be set up, and they will be coached to hit specific ones.
“An average practice will consist of coach Brown setting up certain pin combinations down lane, for example, a 7-10 split, and you focus on getting one of the pins,” Barnes said. “We will do that for around an hour and then move to bowling full games or baker’s matches to find our strike ball on that lane.”
Trying new things was always something that came naturally to Carter Cerny. And with his friends wanting him to join bowling, it gave him a perfect opportunity to try bowling. Most practices are very similar whether practicing their spares or using simulated games.
“An average practice is typically warming up for a few minutes, then either practicing spare shooting or simulating games,” Cerny said. “Trying to recreate that same pressure we feel on the lanes in competition.”
To get themselves prepared and ready for Districts, they didn’t do anything that was too special. They continued to practice spares and use the simulated games.
“To prepare for districts, we would just practice more than normal and focus on sparing shots,” Cerny said. “We would practice in a tournament style during practice, so we would get used to bowling how we would in Districts.”
Fremont was the team that won Districts, and they ended up going to State and taking the State Championship.
