Hobart's Goss wastes no time in stating her case

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It was in the second game of the singles stepladder finals that Darrell Goss stated the obvious to his daughter Megan after she rolled her sixth straight strike.

"You're on fire girl!" he exclaimed. "You're really impressing me today."

The Hobart High School junior has impressed more than just her dad during her improbable postseason run.

She's impressing casual fans, fellow bowlers, conference coordinators and even the occasional high school referee.

That ref would be her uncle, John Goss, who is well known as one of the top officials across the region after 38 years on the job. Little do many of his colleagues or those high school coaches on the sidelines know, he's a pretty good bowler too.

"He's got a 215 average or so," his brother Darrell said.

John also provided some good advice for Megan before she started her postseason back at sectionals, though it was meant as more of a joke.

"The best way to pick up spares is to throw more strikes," he told her on the concourse of Camelot Bowl in Portage last month.

You could almost see the answer on Megan's face: "No foolin' Uncle John."

But she's been following it, whether it's an accident or conscious effort, with some pretty big games at clutch moments made up of mostly strikes.

There was the 244 in the last game of qualifying at regional to vault her from the bubble to the stepladder finals. Or the 255 in the last game of qualifying at the South Bend Semistate at Chippewa Bowl that gave her the fourth seed in the finals.

Then she had a pair of six-baggers (six consecutive strikes) in back-to-back games 220 games in the finals (223 and 226), though that second one resulted in a one-pin loss to eventual champion Alexandra Kimm of South Bend Adams.

Despite the strings of strikes that should relax her dad -- watching 10 pins fall at once is a lot less stressful than waiting for the spare to be picked up -- Darrell is a nervous wreck.

"This is hard on me," he admitted. "I can watch her in league because I can mess with her. But (in the high school postseason) I get too nervous."

Not Megan. She just smiles after each shot whether it's a strike, spare or open frame.

Megan rolled a 703 series over her last three games in the semistate -- more than any other girl in the field in any three-game set -- but she didn't even go out for bowling the first two years of high school and was hesitant this season.

"I didn't really want to," she said about the last two years. "I kind of went along with it."

She's been bowling in the youth league at Cressmoor Lanes in Hobart since age 5, but her dad said she just didn't want to go out for the team. Last fall Hobart High coach Dave Fowble convinced her to give it a try and now she's making plans for state finals.

Fowble is part of the reason she's made it this far. He took over as co-coach with his fiancee Susan Shafer, whose daughter Ashley Jelenek bowls for Hobart's team, three weeks into the season. Now he looks like a guru as he adjusts Megan on the lanes and she executes.

"I trust him a lot,"?she said.

Now Fowble has one more lesson this week before state.

"She just needs to work on spares," he said after she had four open frames in the two games in which she had two six-baggers. "She was so nervous about stepladder at regional. But this time, no nerves. Now she's won a match and gained more experience."

Besides hoping for his prodigy to take another step in her learning process at state finals, Fowble hopes Megan's success serves as a an example for other Hobart bowlers.

"This ought to inspire my players to listen next year," he said. "(Megan) listened and look where she's at."