|
|
|
|
|
|
Friday, May 18, 2012
Covering Dallas, Monmouth, Independence, Falls City and surrounding areas since 1868
Pictutred is the Dallas girls bowling team and coaches, which will head to this weekend's state championships at Lava Lanes in Bend.
February 22, 2012
2012 Oregon State United States Bowling Congress High School Bowling Championships
When: Friday-Sunday.
Where: Lava Lanes, Bend.
Dallas team members: Samantha Smart, Marissa Cuno, Jennifer Cutler, McKenzie Devault, Shelby Hylton, Michelle Jordan, Jaclynn Nichols and Bre Ziegler.
DALLAS -- If you happened to be in Samantha Smart's circle of friends three years ago, chances are you were going to pick up the sport of bowling -- whether you liked it or not.
"I told my friends, `Let's bowl. I don't care if we look funny and we're bad; it doesn't matter, it's just for fun,'" Smart recalled of her freshman year at Dallas High, when she decided to revive the girls bowling team as a club sport.
And they were bad -- at the beginning.
"When we started, Sam was the only one who knew how to bowl, and we were all bowling gutters like every other ball," Smart's best friend, McKenzie DeVault, said with a laugh.
Samantha Smart
"We're like, `What are we going to do? This is going to be terrible.'"
Fast forward to Smart and DeVault's senior year, and the Dragons aren't so terrible -- they captured their first District 2 championship back on Jan. 29 with a 324-245 win over West Albany and are headed to this weekend's Oregon State United States Bowling Congress State High School Championships at Lava Lanes in Bend.
Smart bowled 20 strikes and 15 spares in 40 frames during the district tournament to earn the No. 1 slot in the All-Star rankings, giving her a shot to qualify for the individual-based All-Star Championships March 10-11 at Linn Lanes in Lebanon.
She's been doing this for a while.
"I started when I was really little, like 3," Smart said.
She watched older brother Travis, 20, bowl for the Dallas boys bowling team as a youngster, and knew that when she got to high school she'd start her own team (Dallas last had a girls team in 2007, but it was phased out for two years).
Helping her do that was her mom and coach, Anne. Ted Cuno, whose daughter, Marissa, competes on the team, joined as a coach this year.
"Samantha was like, `Mom, you know that when I'm a freshman we're going to have to do this,'" Anne Smart recalled.
"I told her that she'd have to gather her friends and start a team and I'd help.
"She said, `I know, I will,' and she did."
DeVault and Shelby Hylton joined Smart as three of the original members of that six-member squad of 2009.
"Each year, we've gotten a lot better, and this year, we won the district championship, which was amazing," DeVault said. "I was like, crying."
While the Dallas squad -- which also consists of Jennifer Cutler, Michelle Jordan, Jaclynn Nichols and Bre Ziegler -- hope to improve on last year's sixth-place state finish, Smart will still have more bowling to do after all the high school awards are handed out.
Set to again attend this year's North Pointe Junior Gold Championships -- the national tournament for USBC youth bowling -- in Indianapolis, Smart has her eyes set on a potential bowling scholarship.
Urbana University (Ohio), Notre Dame College (Ohio) and William Penn University (Iowa) are just a few of the schools interested in the top 100 Junior Gold bowler.
"I never expected to go (to Junior Gold) and do well enough to get recruited," Smart, who boasts a single-game high of 279, said. "I went and all these coaches are walking up and introducing themselves, and I'm like, `Oh ... OK.'"
Anne Smart wants others to know the possibilities that are out there for youth bowling.
"It's so important that this is a future thing and that the kids know that they can do this, and scholarships are available."
ACEBOOK