The Wayne Unified Bowling team has been the bridesmaid the in the first few seasons of the sport’s existence.
Now they’re the one walking down the aisle toward a date at the state tournament.
Wayne was the top team out of six in the B-3 district tournament held Tuesday morning at Wildcat Lanes in Wayne, easily distancing themselves from runner-up West Point-Beemer to win the title by 124 pins in the six-game Baker format.
During the first few seasons, unified bowling has been a single-class sport, putting Wayne in a district with bigger schools like Norfolk and South Sioux City.
But with the sport growing to almost 60 schools in the past year, the Nebraska School Activities Association added a second class to give smaller-enrollment schools an opportunity to compete for state, and Wayne was able to get the job done on their home lanes.
“It’s great,” coach Kayla Varley said. “We’ve come close in the past and it’s nice not to be district runner-up for a change. It’s exciting to see the sport is growing enough to where we now have two classes, and we were able to compete with schools more our size and it’s great to be able to go to state.”
Unified bowling is a sport that allows high school students with special needs the opportunity to compete alongside their able-bodied classmates in a sport. Each team must have at least two special-needs athletes on the team competing with three other schoolmates.
The Wayne team, including Araceley Suarez, Corey Rogers, Brianna Nissen, Brooks Kneifl and Jamie Janke, bowled a six-game series of 841, finishing well ahead of runner-up West Point-Beemer’s 717 series.
“The kids bowled really well,” Varley said. “They came in and did the job and got it done.”
By winning Tuesday’s district, the team qualifies for the Class B division of the Nebraska State Unified Bowling Championships that will be held Monday, Dec. 6 at Sun Valley Lanes in Lincoln.
Varley said she’s looking forward to seeing how the team fares among the state’s best next week.
“There’s good competition down there, but we’ve got a good solid team and it’s been awesome to watch them grow and I’m excited to see how we do down in Lincoln,” she said.
B-3 District at Wildcat Lanes
(Six-game series)
Wayne 841, West Point-Beemer 717, Bloomfield 593, Osmond 571, Ponca 469, Umohon Nation 460.
