FORTVILLE — The Mt. Vernon Marauders bowling team will have more spare time for spare time.
For the first time in the program’s history, the Marauders bowling team won the Indiana High School Bowling (IHSB) Indianapolis East Conference sectional.
Last Saturday at Strike Force Lanes in Greenfield, the Marauders beat New Palestine in the final. The two Hancock County schools reached the championship round (both will advance to the Kokomo regional in March) by finishing ahead of six other conference schools in the opening round.
The conference includes teams from Lutheran, Franklin Central, Cathedral, Greenfield-Central, Warren Central and Eastern Hancock.
Mt. Vernon had finished sixth out of the eight schools during the regular season.
“It was great to watch the kids and their excitement. The other teams were excited for them, as well,” first-year Mt. Vernon head coach Scott Whitehouse said. “I don’t know if we were necessarily picked to go that far, so it made the victory a lot sweeter.”
Whitehouse said his group of seven bowlers haven’t missed a practice all season. They worked on drills to continue to get better, including keying on picking up spares.
“I attribute it to their diligence and their hard work on spare shooting,” coach Whitehouse said of how his group went from sixth to first. “I preach to them all year the only way you win a game in bowling is to be a good spare shooter. Everybody throws strikes, but the winner is the one that picks up the most spares.
“Spare shooting is the key to bowling.”
The seven-member Marauders team includes the coach’s son, Noah Whitehouse, who along with Gabriel Thompson are the team’s only seniors. Caitlyn Anderson is one of two freshmen and the only girl on the team.
Mt. Vernon did not have enough players for a girls-only team, so it is a co-ed team.
“We’ve never had enough girls to make a team,” coach Whitehouse added. “That made it even more fun for us to be a co-ed team and to be competitive and win the (boys) sectional. It made it more exciting.”
Other team members include, freshman Jackson Dowden, sophomores Josh Dowden and Cam Anderson and junior Jack Kern.
The coach said working on spares and practicing twice a week, he’s seen significant improvement from his team.
“Each one has, probably, since the beginning of the school season picked their average up 15 to 20 pins. I put them through a lot of drills and practice twice a week (for free at Strike Force Lanes) and they have been open to everything.
“They’ve made huge improvements.”
The sectional setup had a singles competition, where the top-nine advance to the regional. Following singles competition, each team bowled six games and the top-two teams (Mt. Vernon and New Palestine) advanced to a two-game bowl-off to see who would win the sectional.
In the team competition, five bowlers play in a match with each player bowling two frames per game.
Mt. Vernon was second to New Palestine going into the bowl-off, but beat the Dragons in both games.
“It was absolutely amazing,” Noah Whitehouse, who also advanced in the singles competition, said of winning the sectional. “I couldn’t really believe it at first. When we were bowling I had high hopes and after we won I was kind of star-struck by it all. It took a while to take in.”
Noah said his scoring average was 158-160 to start the season. He now has a 188 average.
Mt. Vernon had lost to New Palestine in the regular season and finished second to the Dragons in the first round of Saturday’s sectional.
“It was awesome knowing we just had a chance at it,” Noah added. “We just put our heads down and wanted it. It was pretty cool to beat a team we had lost to multiple times.”
It was the first time Mt. Vernon had reached the team bowl-off part of the sectional competition.
“We were kind of the underdogs this year, too,” Noah added. “To be the underdogs and come out on top was really neat. I didn’t know how to have my hopes set for (the sectional). Going from not being any competition for other schools to winning is awesome.”
