It’s the third time in three years that the Great Bend High School boys’ bowling team has qualified for the Class 5-1A state tournament.
Today, the boys will begin competition at 9:30 a.m. at the Northrock Lanes in Wichita.
The girls qualified three bowlers — Jacy Quade, Miranda Hejny and Kelli Kirmer. The girls competition will follow the boys at 2 p.m.
“They had two awesome days of practice (leading up to the state tournament),” GBHS head coach Mike Perry said. “The boys are shooting phenomenal, and we got the girls lined up pretty good. I’m expecting big things this weekend.”
Representing the boys team is Dakota Conaway, Eric Ruiz, Danny Herrman, Kolt Ramey, Mark Lang and Jeff Meitler. With exception of Meitler, who is a freshman, all of the boys are juniors and all of them have been to the state tournament before.
“It helps us tremendously just by keeping us calm,” Conaway said. “I mean, we’re going to have nerves. This whole week, I’ve had stuff in my stomach, but I think it’s just adrenaline ready to bowl. We’re just going in one shot at a time. I think we’ll do very good down there. We only have one inexperienced bowler, but I think he’ll be fine.”
Meitler said that he expects it to be similar to the regional competition that Great Bend hosted last Saturday, except louder.
“Yeah, I feel pressure, and I’m a freshman,” Meitler said. “It’s my first time going to a big tournament like state. It’s going to be loud. It’s going to be noisy.”
Conaway holds the top finish of any Great Bend bowler at state, taking fourth place last year.
“I shot a 680 and I took fourth,” Conaway said. “Individually, I mean, I won that Great Plains tournament and that was pretty much out of 6A and 5A. It was pretty much on the same lanes, so I kind of think I have a shot at winning first, but I’m worried more about the team. It’s a bigger prize knowing that your team is the state champion. My goal is to win a state championship.”
Herrman, who was a regional champion as a freshman, said that he bowled his best series during practice the day before leaving for Wichita.
“Last year, I got 35th shooting a 610,” Herrman said, “and I know that Eric and Dakota finished higher than me. I’m hoping to shoot a 600. I know (Wednesday at practice) I shot my high here. It was a 670. It eases the pressure a little bit.”
The team went to Wichita on Thursday to watch the 6A competition. Perry said that he hoped it would allow his team to relax.
“We decided to come down early,” Perry said. “A lot of the kids have been here before, but Jeff is a freshman, and so he’s never seen what its like. I wanted them to be able to get used to the noise, and get acclimated to the environment.
“We also wanted them to see how 6A was shooting. We’ve seen them in some of the competitions we’ve been to this year, so we wanted to look at how they were bowling and figure out where we needed to be.”
The boys’ biggest competition will be Bishop Carroll and Topeka Seaman.
“It should be a battle between us, Bishop Carroll and Topeka Seaman,” Perry said. “We’re the three teams that seem to get here every year. You know, they’re not wide-eyed. They’re going to be focused.
“Hopefully we can come out of the gates running. We need to have three solid games.”
The Panthers will be paired with Bishop Carroll during the competition.
“Our experience definitely helps us this year, and going into next year,”Lang said. “Everything about it helps us. We wanted to win (the Western Athletic Conference title). We did that. We wanted to win regionals. We did that. We want to win state. We’re going to try to do that.
“Bishop Carrol is going to give us some problems, and that is the only one that I can think of right now. They’re the big competition for us.”
The Panthers finished in sixth place last year. Kansas City Washington won the tournament.
Quade, Kirmer and Hejny each qualified as an individual, bowling series of 526, 514 and 506, respectively in the regional tournament.
Hejny said that even though the girls aren’t competing as a team this season, they will stick together and encourage one another.
“I do feel bad that we’re not going again as a team because it is just not the same experience,” Hejny said. “We’ll be on the same lane, and no matter how we do, I think that we’ll be rooting each other on, but it’s not going to be quite the same.”                 
Kirmer was the top individual finisher for the Lady Panthers last year, rolling a 583 for 13th place. Hejny finished in 18th place and Quade took 42nd overall.