As winter sports begin practices, one sport has already started its season. This sport is unified bowling. Unified bowlers kicked off their season on October 31, varsity taking first by 20 pins and the two JV teams taking first and second by 200 pins. 

As opposed to last year’s one senior, this year’s team has two seniors. They are Gavyn Bossell and Camden Garcia.

To obtain an inside perspective, head coach Laura Mangas was interviewed. Mangas has been coaching for five years. Some of her goals for the season are for the players to, “…be more consistent with [their] grades, spares and enthusiasm for the game.” Mangas says that so far, their season is going well, and that “we have some very strong seniors this year and several strong underclass returning from last season.” 

With the Coronavirus pandemic taking its toll on many sports and activities at the high school, bowling has also been affected. “we have to wear a mask while on the bench and may take it down while on the approach. New this year is being able to use alcohol to clean the ball between frames.  This has never happened before but due to sharing lanes lanes and the ball return there is concern for others touching their ball.” At the home bowling invitational on November 14, Striv.tv was also used to broadcast the bowlers as they competed.

At this invite, Alliance defended their home territory and were the Alliance Invite Champs! The bulldog bowlers were the number one seed going into the tournament, and defeated South Platte in the championship round.

The unified bowling team has three district titles, and one state title from 2017. District bowling takes place December 2 and state takes place December 7. The SPUD hopes that another district title, and another trip to state are in the near future of our bowlers. Good luck unified bowling!