Girls Bowling: Tado’s mental approach the key to her success

Updated: November 17, 2011 8:07PM

Elk Grove’s Tedra Tado was so focused during last year’s state bowling finals that she didn’t listen to anyone, including her coach.

It was the first time Tado had used the counterintuitive strategy and it paid big dividends, as she placed fifth, the highest finish in school history.

“I couldn’t believe I placed fifth,” Tado said. “It was actually really surprising because all day I didn’t want to know where I stood.

“All day people kept trying to tell me where I was but I just ignored what they were saying. I didn’t listen to them at all. I focused on my game and nobody else’s.”

Tado figured that if she knew what everyone else was bowling, it would just make her nervous.

“I just focused on myself and that was really different from what I did in any other tournament,” Tado said. “I just figured that I’m at state and it could be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so I just needed to make sure to try to place higher than any other tournament.”

A model of consistency all weekend, Tado was in 14th place after Friday’s preliminary round after a 1,268 series, which included no game lower than 199. While all but four of the bowlers ahead of her lost ground on Saturday, Tado was able to move up nine spots with a 1,322 series. Her 2,590 total was just 16 pins behind third-place finisher Courtney Petoskey of Oswego.

Tado was shocked by her accomplishment but it didn’t surprise Elk Grove coach Kim Sander.

“After the morning [session] I knew something great was going to happen,” Sander said. “You just knew that her game was on. You just know when a bowler is on and is going to keep going.

“And we knew her placement the whole time. She didn’t want to know, so that was hard to keep the stone-cold face, to not get excited, to not show her where she was going. So we kind of knew a lot earlier than she did.”

So what was the key?

“At state she had mental toughness that I’d never seen before in her,” Sander said. “She was consistently strong the entire couple days and that’s what really helped her keep climbing instead of going down like some other bowlers do.”

While Tado always had the physical strength to compete, honing her mental game was something she worked hard on last year.

“Bowling is pretty much all a mental game because if you’re not mentally tough I don’t think you’ll be able to do well,” Tado said. “Because once you get down on yourself, your game completely disappears.”

Now a senior, Tado’s confidence grew over the summer, when she was part of the only all-girls team to compete in the Junior World Team Challenge in Las Vegas.

She hopes to again finish in the top five and lead the Grenadiers to state as a team.

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