HHS Bowling Continues Early Success

HHS student and varsity bowler Maddox Warburton joined bowling his freshman year because of his past experiences bowling with his family.

HHS’s bowling program was created three years ago after the NSAA added bowling as a competitive high school sport during the Winter Season. The HHS bowling team has continued its early success after qualifying for state in its first year as a program in 2022. 

“I think it’s a good thing that they did add that as an actual school sport, not just a club sport, that way more people would know about it and go out for it so we could have more people getting together through the school,” Warburton said.

“(The bowling team] could have an impact on the school by giving us a new sport to promote. [The school] is promoted a lot already but it’s another outlet that we could use to promote the school,” Warburton said.

Losing is never easy when you care about what you do. This was especially true for HHS when they lost to rival school Grand Island Northwest. After enjoying the feeling of winning districts in its first year, the team came up just short last year.

“My least favorite part is probably losing to Grand Island Northwest and districts because we beat them at a different tournament in Lexington. We almost beat them here in districts,” Warburton said.

Warburton believes that people who are interested in making new friends and learning a new skill they can use after high school should join bowling.

“[The bowling team] could benefit kids by allowing them to have more friends than they normally would have met. It also helps them learn about the sport and how to help other people if they ever want to get into bowling,” Maddox Warburton said.

A big change for the bowling team has been the new coaching staff. One positive aspect of having new coaches is having new input to make each bowler better as they compete. 

“My favorite part of this season was definitely getting to have the new coaches help us out a lot and having them help us as much as they can when they can and going to the meets and being on varsity,” Warburton said.

The Tiger program added a new coaching staff who have guided the team throughout the season.

“We just got new coaches this year: our Head Coach Cade Tate is an ex-military guy and our Assistant Coach Dave Durr. They’re both really good coaches and they helped us out a lot this year by helping teach us about the lanes, what not to do, and when to do what,” Warburton said.

Owning his own ball and using it to be successful is one thing that has grown his love for the sport of bowling.

“I’d have to say my favorite thing about [bowling] is when you get to have your own ball and you get the feeling of owning one. When you throw the ball down the line and hear the pins explode, that is a great feeling,” Warburton said.

According to Warburton, The best part of being on the HHS bowling team has been bonding with his teammates and making new friends through bowling.

“My favorite part is definitely getting to meet new people each year and hanging out with all the guys,” Warburton said.