On Feb. 12-13, 2025, the individual NSAA State Bowling Championships were held at the Sun Valley Lanes and Games in Lincoln. Millard West had one athlete, junior Anden Sutter, reach the final eight bracket and won his way through to bring home the gold for the first time in school history.
After not placing as he would have liked to at Metros, he knew he had to put in his all for the District and State Tournaments. It was a long journey during state, as he had to go through four rounds of qualifying games, then once they cut to the top eight bowlers, it’s down to four head-to-head matches to finish it out.
“I bowled extremely well throughout the tournament, averaging around 208 for all 10 games,” Sutter said. “It feels great to have won, I am thrilled and even sort of relieved to have been able to complete this goal that I’ve had since my first season. Going into it, I had high expectations and wanted to be able to keep myself up to my normal standards.”
With 13 years of bowling experience, Sutter has been working toward a win like this since he was about 4-years old. Even though he has a lot of knowledge about the sport himself, math teacher and head bowling coach Megan Smith, has been cheering him on the past three years of high school and helping him get to this spot.
“It has been a lot of fun coaching Anden over the last three years and seeing his development both as an athlete and as a person,” Smith said. “His biggest challenge this season was getting out of his own head at times. He knows a lot about the game, which sometimes leads him to overthink the details and try to micromanage certain aspects of his game. At State, he did a great job of just making his shots and doing what he knows how to do, without overanalyzing a little hiccup here or there.”
As with any other sport, teams come together to practice and spend a lot of time at the lanes trying to perfect their techniques. The Millard West bowling athletes come together twice a week, to practice their skills, and with spending a lot of time with each other, they have been able to grow new bonds with each other, and multiple teammates were down watching Sutter’s gold medal run.
“I was down in Lincoln watching the entire thing because I wanted to cheer my teammate on,” senior Collin Witte said. “It was very exciting and honestly emotional to see how happy he was after he won. You can tell that this is something he has been working towards his whole life.”
As only a junior, Sutter has another shot to make the same run as he did this year and add another medal to his resume. Being able to stay in his zone and remain unfazed by his opponents will make his future with bowling remain as bright as it is right now.
