The First Last

Saturday morning started off early as I made breakfast for the Crothersville Bowling team and coaches. I made biscuits, sausage gravy, with scrambled eggs, ham, cheese, and a sausage patty. It was a great way to start off the last match for seniors, Patrick, Jordon, and Chester. After all the kids enjoyed their breakfast, we loaded up the vehicles and headed to Seymour bowling alley. As we pulled into the parking lot, on the radio, BTO was singing Takin’ Care of Business. I told the boys that is what they were there to do! They all agreed and it was in their plans.

Making our way into the alley and greeting all our friends and new acquaintances we have made over the last couple years was bittersweet as we knew this would be the last time we would all be together.

At the beginning of the match the head of the Southeastern Conference introduced the seniors from each of the participating teams. After the introductions all the bowlers made their way to the bowling lanes for the national anthem.

The bowlers received their lane assignments for singles bowling. Patrick was 9E. His first frame he was open and had one other open frame in his first game, but finished with a respectable 173. He moved to lane 11 and began his second of three singles matches. This was a better match as he finished with a 181.

The coaches were figuring with the averages of the bowlers it would take somewhere around a 520 series to make it to regional next week. That meant Patrick needed a 166 in his third game to make it to 520. Anything above that would be a cushion.

His third and final singles game started out good and finished strong with a 182 for a 536 series. According to the stats we had, we were thinking this would be more than enough to make it out of the sectional and into the regional next weekend. Now we played the waiting game. As the other bowlers finished their matches and turned their cards into the score table we became anxious waiting on the announcement of the cut.

There were 14 different teams from Bloomington South, Bloomington North, Bedford North Lawrence, Edgewood, Mitchell, Seymour, Columbus North, Scottsburg, Madison, just to name a few, and over 70 bowlers with only the top 14 continuing on to the next round.

Finally the announcement came. The cut was a 550 series. Fourteen pins short for the next round. Devastation. Patrick’s singles career for high school had ended. The other top two bowlers for Crothersville was Jordon Glover at 538 and Eryn West with a 534 series. Both short of the 550 cut also.

Next up for the Crothersville bowlers was the team bowl. The team bowled a series of three games followed by five Baker Bowl games. After the position round of team bowl, Crothersville was seeded eighth out of the fourteen teams. After Baker Bowl, Crothersville finished sixth. Moving on to the regional would be the top three teams. Patrick’s first last of his senior year had happened.

So many new friends were made over his two years participating in bowling. As a parent I am so proud of Patrick’s accomplishments in just these two short years. As this time comes to a close, tears are shed, hugs are exchanged, congrats are shared, and life continues.