The Seymour High School girls bowling team may not have started the season the way it wanted, but the girls made up for it with a strong finish.
Following a season-opening loss to Madison, Seymour went on to finish with a 12-2 record. The Owls then placed first in the South Central Indiana Conference and sectional meets and second at regional.
On Saturday, they will be making their second straight appearance in the semistate.
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Sophomore Hannah Kaufman and senior Angela Pelfrey will compete in the singles tournament at 9 a.m., and they will join their teammates for the team tournament at 1 p.m. All of the action takes place at Southern Bowl in Greenwood.
“It’s fun to go up there and spend the whole day,” Seymour head coach Shannon Kelly said. “The competition each time is a step up, and it’s fun to watch the girls take that step up when they go, watching the confidence build. We came out in the very first match of the season and got stomped by Madison, and they came back and scratched their head, and then they were off and running.”
Kaufman has had another strong season, placing first in the singles tournaments at sectional and regional. Last year as a freshman, she won sectional and qualified for semistate.
At sectional this year in Columbus, she was third with a 500 series going into the stepladder round. There, she defeated Madison’s Alyssa Bush 185-139 and then toppled Madison’s Angela Leap 257-184 in the championship.
Kaufman said stringing together strikes at one point in the finals helped her take the title.
“It felt good,” she said. “As a freshman, I was bowling against (Leap), as well, so we were both bowling against each other again. I wanted to win because starting off that day, I wasn’t doing very good, and I was like, ‘Man, I just want to advance’ because I was doing bad.”
Pelfrey just missed the stepladder round, placing fifth with a 497 series.
In the team portion, Seymour defeated Madison 338-305.
At the Jasper Regional, Kaufman’s 606 series put her at the top going into the stepladder, while Pelfrey was fourth with 506. Pelfrey then beat Leap 199-147 behind five straight spares but lost to Bush 174-160.
In the championship, Kaufman came back in the 10th frame with a pair of strikes to defeat Bush 188-181.
“I think the others (her teammates) were more nervous for me because I had to have two strikes,” Kaufman said.
Pelfrey said it was a good feeling making it into the stepladder and advancing to semistate for the second year in a row.
This time in the team competition, Madison captured the title against Seymour 322-287. Kelly said it was a tough day for all teams at Eastown Recreation Center.
“Their lanes are older lanes, so the oil pattern just really gave everybody there a hard time,” he said. “There wasn’t really anybody that ran away with it. Everybody had to fight for every spare and everything all day long. If you look at our scores compared to the other regionals, our scores were down a little bit because of that.”
At Saturday’s Greenwood Semistate, the top eight girls in the individual tournament will advance to the state finals, while Seymour will aim for the top four in the team tournament. The state finals are Feb. 21 at Cooper’s Sport Bowl in Anderson.
“I would say just advance, make it to state since I didn’t last year, and if I place anywhere in the stepladder, then I’ll take it from there,” Kaufman said of her goal.
“I just want to make it through,” Pelfrey said of her hopes of making it to state for the first time. “I don’t care where I place, really, as long as I go through.”
Also in the 2014-15 campaign, Seymour’s boys team finished 9-5 in the regular season and placed fifth at conference and sectional and eighth in the regional. In junior varsity action, the boys won the conference championship, and the coed squad was second.
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What: Indiana High School Bowling Greenwood Semistate
When: Saturday (singles tournament at 9 a.m.; team tournament at 1 p.m.)
Where: Southern Bowl, 1010 S. U.S. 31, Greenwood
Admission: $8
Advancement: Eleven boys and eight girls in the singles tournament will move on to the state finals, while six boys squads and four girls squads in the team tournament will advance.
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