Lauren Gould helped the York girls bowling team advance to the state finals tournament.
By Mike Miazga
Correspondent
York junior girls bowler Lauren Gould had an inkling her team could have a good year.
“But we knew it would take a lot of work to get done,” she said. “It wasn’t going to be easy. Our coaches (said) the whole season ‘when we get to state,’ not ‘if we get to state.’ That was very different. That helped us get there. They had so much confidence in us.”
York’s strong year indeed did end with the team in the state finals tournament near Rockford. Gould led the way with an 1,133 series that included a 256 high game (that featured one string of six strikes in a row).
“We had a lot of girls on the team that had very good mental attitudes,” said Gould. “That’s important because I would say 90 percent of the game is mental.”
Gould said a lot of her improvement this season had to do with the mental side of the game.
“I worked on staying focused,” she said. “That can be really hard considering how loud it can get in the alley. In bowling if you are not 110 percent focused on your mark and your mind is somewhere else, you have no chance of hitting the head pin.”
Gould laughs about how she became involved in the sport freshman year.
“I have no idea why I started,” she said. “The funny part of the story is I was going to try out for the team with a friend and then she kind of bailed on me. It was the day of the tryout and I figured I’m a freshman and I’m supposed to be getting out and doing things and joining clubs, so let’s do this and let’s give it a shot. Now it’s something where I’m going to focus on bowling my senior year (She previously played softball as well).”
Gould is a big fan of the team aspect in the sport. “I like the energy the sport brings,” she said. “It’s a team atmosphere. It’s way better than playing any other sport. At our sectional meet our coaches were so excited for us. That was amazing. Our coaches are amazing. This is a sport where it’s somewhere I want to be every week. Other sports sometimes you seem to find a reason why you don’t want to go on a particular day. There is nothing like bowling.”
Gould raised her average this year from an estimated 160 to the 180 range. “I didn’t do a lot of work over this past summer and that’s something I’m going to try to change this year,” she said. “Practicing is going to be my biggest step to improving when next season comes around. I’m going to work on things like concentration and getting the 10 pin. If your concentration is off and your mark is off by like three boards and you do one small thing wrong, it will ruin the rest of the shot. Missing the 10 pin adds up and it can hurt your team’s score.”
Gould, an honor-roll student at York, already is looking forward to the 2017-2018 season. “We don’t only want to make it to state, we want to get to the second day of state and try to take home a trophy as a team,” she said. “I want to go to state again with the whole team.”
