Kougars steal the show, advance

Font Size

Email

Bookmark

Black Text

White Text

SOUTH BEND -- To those Northwest Indiana high school bowling fans who have doubted the Kankakee Valley boys team, you might want to start believing soon.

The Kougars are headed to the state finals in only their second year as a varsity bowling program after rallying in the last three Baker (five bowlers rolling two frames each) games of qualifying to finish in fourth at the South Bend Semistate at Chippewa Bowl.

It will also be the first team state finals appearance for any KV athletic squad.

Don't feel too bad. Not all the players believed it could happen either.

"This is unreal," said KV's Derek Smenyak, who also had a pretty good day in the afternoon singles competition. "I knew we had a good team coming into the season. I thought we could reach semistate. But we got some breaks and we're going to state."

That's actually a modest assessment of the Kougars' postseason run, especially on Saturday. KV averaged 211 as a team in the first two regular games, led by a 505 two-game series by Randy Mewes (269 high game) and 495 from Justin Shepard (258 high).

"Derek has struggled the last couple weeks, but he had the high average for us all season," coach Butch Shepard said. "Randy and Justin really stepped up today."

Smenyak's struggles had come in team events. He has been rolling in singles, including Saturday, when he rolled 745 for three games of qualifying to reach the stepladder finals. He lost to eventual champion E.J. Tackett of Huntington North, who opened singles with an exciting 300 game.

Some fans and even a bowler or two might have been skeptical about how far the Kougars could keep rolling, but their coach was always optimistic.

"I was positive we were headed to state," Butch Shepard said. "I told the kids all week I was positive. It's just awesome."

Highland was first after the first game of qualifying, but fell off drastically and ended up seventh. Boone Grove was eighth after a nice finish of 637 in the last three games.

Smenyak defeated Griffith's Ryan McCoy in the singles semifinals, 226-213.

The other two region boys to advance are from the same school. Boone Grove senior Lynn Strohl finished fifth to advance to his second individual state finals -- he finished fourth as a sophomore -- while his teammate, Jimmy Kraushaar, placed eighth to advance to his first state finals as a junior.

"Oh my God, I'm bowling in the state finals!" Kraushaar exclaimed.

Contact Steve T. Gorches at 648-3141, sgorches@post-trib.com or visit his blog at blogs.post-trib.com/gorches.