Basketball and wrestling are well known for being the winter high school sports in Michigan.

But there’s another sport gaining in popularity at Niles High School.

The Vikings’ boys bowling team finished third with 3,863 total pins and a 183.95 average last Friday at the Division 2 team regional at the Continental Lanes in Kalamazoo. That performance qualified Niles for the team state finals this Friday at Century Lanes in Waterford. The top three teams advance to the state finals.

The Vikings also have two bowlers that have qualified for the individual state finals on Saturday. Senior Stingray Jaynes (1,152 total pins, 192 average at regional, based on total pins divided by games bowled, 6) will compete in the boys competition and junior Kaitlyn McDonald (1,024 pins, 170 average) will participate in the girls competition. The Niles girls team finished sixth overall.

This year marks the first time that the boys team has qualified for the state finals. Niles has only had a bowling team for four years.

Niles will take eight bowlers to the state finals with seven of them bowling.

Joining Jaynes on the team are sophomore Noah Frantz (1,094 total pins, 182 average at regionals), senior Grant Gourlay (1,074 total pins, 179 average), senior Spencer Fuller (1,022 total pins, 170.3 average), junior Jordan McGregor (940 total pins, 156.6 average), junior Tyler Mahar (916 total pins, 152 average), sophomore Dru Brown (didn’t compete at regionals) and senior Logan Ortiz-Leonard (didn’t compete at regionals).

“Stingray, Grant and Noah have bowled in youth and high school program since they were five years old,” said Niles boys and girls bowling coach Jim Jaynes, who volunteers as coach. “McDonald has bowled for just two years and has done exceptionally well. She’s a little firecracker.”

The bowling team practices at 8 a.m. on Friday and the competition starts around 8:20 a.m.

“I think we’ll do fairly well,” Jaynes said. “There are tough teams out there. The bigger programs have 30 kids try out and have had program for 10 years. We have 19 kids on our our varsity and junior varsity combined.”