The Swan Valley girls bowling team finished another impressive regular season. The state tournament, however, was somewhat frustrating again.
Over the past four years, the team has won 40 straight regular-season matches and has won the Tri-Valley Central Division all four of those years.
Tony Bremer, head coach for the boys’ and girls’ teams, said, “We’ve been real lucky over the years where we’ve had girls that graduate and other girls step in and know what to do.”
This season, Bremer has two girls on the team who have been there for four years, Tammy Crawford and Hannah McClean. They’re two of his top bowlers along with senior Kiersten Mead, who is on the team for her third season. Crawford and McClean average in the 170s, while Mead is in the 190s.
“Our top bowlers all average 140 or better,” Bremer said.
Other top bowlers are Nikki Hayes, Halli Clark, and Tia Owens. Owens bowledin the individual state finals.
“We’ve had a couple of close calls early on in the season,” Bremer said. “We had a close one the last week of the season. With any sport, the good teams or bad teams can have a good day or bad day. Just because we’ve been ranked in the top 10 for most of the last four years doesn’t mean we can’t struggle.”
Swan Valley is in Division 3. The girls’ team was the defending two-time regional champion n 2012 and 2013, but it was knocked out both years in the qualifying round at state finals. In 2014, Swan Valley was second to Ovid-Elsie in the regionals.
“We’ve missed the cut by about 15 pins both years,” Bremer said going into the postseason. “I know we’ll make the cut and finish top three in team event regionals. I expect them to make the state finals again. This team has learned the last two years the disappointment at state. I think we could go a little further this year.”
Oh well, it happened again to Swan Valley in the 2014 Division 3 state finals at Airport Lanes in Jackson Feb. 28-March 1. The team tied with Armada for the final qualifying spot and had a baker set playoff, which Armada won.
Bremer calls winning 40 regular-season matches in a row “a great accomplishment. But falling short at the state finals kind of downplays it a little bit. You can have a great regular season. But if you can’t put the exclamation point on the season at the end and win a championship, it kind of leaves you a little disappointed.
“I know in the last couple of years, we’ve been disappointed by missing the cut by so little.”
This season’s team, compared to the previous three, “is just as strong,” Bremer said. “What makes this year and last year a little more special is our top two bowlers last year were hurt most of the year and only bowled a combined 14 games during the regular season. But they were still able to go undefeated. This year, we lost our top bowler [three] weeks ago, Kiersten Mead. She broke her arm. But they won their final four matches without her. This team is coming together as one.”
It won’t surprise Bremer to see Swan Valley’s success continue in future years. “There’s some girls coming up through middle school that can still carry the torch and continue the success of this program,” Bremer said. “It seems like every year the number of high schools getting into bowling have gone up.”