The Southern Lake Michigan High School Bowling Conference held its first meet as the Niles Vikings and Brandywine Bobcats 2012-13 bowling campaign got under way Saturday at Joey Armadillo’s.

In the first round, the Bobcat’s defeated Niles’ Gold squad 17-13 in a closely contested match. They then defeated the Vikings’ Blue squad in the second round 22.5-7.5. The Bobcat girls split their decisions on the day first beating Niles’ Gold squad 17-13 but then fell in the next match to Vikings’ Blue squad 24-6.

“Hopefully we gained some mental toughness today. Bowling is the only sport you can do everything right and still get a bad result; so we have to be able to control our frustrations and make proper adjustments,” Brandywine head coach Jim Conrad said. “But we’ve got some young kids that are coming along well and I like where we stand.”

Charles Kuemin was the only Brandywine bowler to go 4-0 for the day.

The Niles girls Blue squad dominated the day going undefeated by first taking out Allegan with a score of 29-1 and followed it up with the beating of Brandywine in the second round. Both of Niles boys squads didn’t fair very well going a combined 0-4 for the meet.

Andrea Velez and Kelsey Medlin both went 4-0 for the Vikings on the day while Velez led all Niles’ rollers by carrying a 200 average per game on the day.

Niles’ coach Jim Jaynes was upbeat about his team’s performance and thought that despite his team having a large group of inexperienced players, the team weathered the pressures of their first meet rather well.

“We have a lot of kids who are first time bowlers on this team and I don’t care who you are, when you do something like this for the first time, you’re going to be nervous,” he said. “The girls (Blue squad) really pulled together well today and worked as a unit, we have a month to work on the mental game and our only goal is to see improvement. If we get that I’ll be happy.”

 

At Joey Armadillo’s

Boys results

First Flight

Brandywine d. Niles (Gold) 17-13

Second Flight

Allegan d. Niles (Blue) 29-1

Brandywine d. Niles (Blue) 22.5-7.5

South Haven d. Niles (Gold) 29-1

Girls results

First Flight

Brandywine d. Niles (Gold) 17-13

Niles (Blue) d. Allegan 29-1

Second Flight

Niles (Blue) d. Brandywine 24-6

South Haven d. Niles (Gold) 27-3