By Cathy Loffland
The Haysville Times
January 19 was an historic day for the Colt bowling team. There was a lot of hoopla going on as usual for the young bowlers, but then at the end of the second game a silence came across all of West Acres Bowl. All the eyes in the bowling alley were on Curtis Baptist, Senior at Campus. Baptist had ten consecutive strikes and getting ready to bowl his final three turns of the tenth frame.
You could have heard a pin drop in the bowling alley, and Baptist could feel the pressure. “I took a deep breath and tried to stay as calm as possible,” said Baptist.
After all the silence Baptist rolled a perfect game of a 300. Everybody in the bowling alley screamed and shouted for Baptist. He finished off the match with an 805 series, achieving both the first 300 game and 800 series of the season in the high school league.
Baptist hopes to get scouted and bowl on the Wichita State University team.
The rest of the Campus Bowling team is off to a great start this season as well. All the Campus teams are 2- 1 except for the Junior Varsity girls, who haven’t won a match yet.
“The team has a lot of camaraderie and a lot of positive energy, which is very important,” said Michael Kipp, the team’s coach.
In the first meeting against Newton at Seneca Bowl, Ashley Frail had a high series for the girls of a 613. On the boys team there were three who had a high series: they were Curtis Baptist with a 719, Jason Swagler had a 686 and Kyle Holmes had a 616.
“The scores right now are as good as anybody in the state for both girls and boys,” said Kipp.
There have been a lot of two hundred games this season already, with the boys and girls setting many firsts for the team.
At the second match against Goddard at West Acres the team won all but one.
Some of the other high games and series were Kyle Holmes with a high series of 665, made up of three games of 221, 237, 207. Kyle Bonfiglio got a 246, Swagler, 235; Drew Wattman, 226; Josh Wattman, 222; and Samson Steen, 211.
High scoring girls are Ashley Conrad with a 183, 197, 178 to make a high series of 558. Ruth Bailey had a series of 510 and Frail had a 508.
The bowling team went on to compete against Maize on Tuesday and ended up losing all four matches.
There were still some impressive games and series. Christina Heston averaged over 200 each game, with a high series of 606. Conrad also had a good game of 213. Swagler and Wattman bowled a 673 and 644, respectively. Baptist rolled a 222 and 207; Steen, 232; and Kevin Robertson 201.