On Tuesday, December 3rd, the Millard West Unified Bowling team competed in the district meet. The Wildcat’s team consisted of five total bowlers: senior Nolan Hoff, junior Jake Parkman, sophomore Bryan Stuckenscmidt, senior Kelsey Bowen and sophomore Ivan Smith. The team came in second place overall at the meet and ended the season off right.

The Wildcats believe that their showing at the District meet was the perfect way to end the season. Millard West had a good regular season where they beat Ralston, Omaha Bryan, Millard South, but lost to Millard North twice. In the regular season, tournaments where eight teams competed in each of them, the Wildcats took home third, fourth, fifth and sixth places. The team improved greatly throughout the season and they got better with each competition. In the meet the team bowled a combined 887 score, which was their highest of the whole season.

“We did pretty good, everybody bowled pretty well,” Hoff said. “The athletes did pretty well and so did the partners. We did better than usual, and got second place overall behind Millard North.”

Although the Wildcats took second place in the meet, there are always areas to improve on and things practice. Millard North’s team bowled a 1094, significantly more than the Wildcats. With enough practice, however the Wildcats should be able to get better. Unfortunately, that will have to wait until next year as the district meet marked the end of the season. Second place will definitely motivate the Wildcats to come back even better next year.

“In our district it would have been really hard to move up,” coach Jan Lehms said. “Millard North beat us by about 200 pins.”

As the season went along the Wildcats were able to get much closer as a team. This year the team had over 50 bowlers. As they spent more time with each other at practices and competitions they got to know each other much better and build new friendships. As the team bonded together they got better as a group and that lead to great results during the competitions.

“We got better every tournament by picking up our spares that improved a lot and I think we improved every tournament,” Hoff said.

The Wildcats practiced very hard throughout the season and that allowed them to stand out at districts. By working hard each day the Wildcats were able to get high scores each meet and place higher. The team is very proud of all of the work that they put in to have a great season and perform well.

“The team greatly improved,” Lehms said. “The district team in particular, they improved throughout the season so they could get their team high.”

The Wildcats are very happy with how this season went and that they were able to cap it off with a great showing in the biggest meet of all. Hopefully the team can improve over the off-season and come back even stronger than ever. They are optimistic about next season and believe that they have what it takes to win districts and even state next year.