Real bowlers adjust

Comets coach out to inspire team to ‘roll with the changes’

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — Doug Bohlen is working on his left-handed “knockout” punch.

A heady task for someone who is right-handed.

“I was doing some work at home and I threw my right shoulder out,” Bohlen said. “So now I’m bowling left-handed.”

Bohlen said he’s not doing that bad from the left side.

“I’m averaging about 140 … 150,” said Bohlen, who is a 10-Pin Heaven league roller at Comet Bowl on Wednesday evenings. “I hope to improve as the season progresses.”

Before the injury, Bohlen had rolled a 700-plus series this fall-winter season as the score is posted on Comet Bowl’s honors board.

Also posted on the honors board are three 700-plus series’ by Tyler Brockney, who was a senior on Charles City High School’s boys bowling team last year — a team that Bohlen coached.

“He’s become one of the finest men’s league bowlers around,” Bohlen said of Brockney. “We lost a lot of seniors from our boys team, but you never know who might step up.”

Last season, both the Charles City boys and girls teams placed fourth at the Class 1A State Bowling Tournament. The Comet girls initially were awarded the third-place trophy, but when the team spotted a final score tabulation error, it informed the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union of the mistake and arranged to transfer the trophy to its rightful recipient, Le Mars.

Last year, the Comet girls showed their sportsmanship. This year, Bohlen expects the team to show more of its mettle.

“We didn’t graduate any seniors from that team,” Bohlen said of Comet girls. “Mija (Cotton) will be the only returning senior from the state team.”

The Comets will also return defending individual state champion Macy Ross.

“Most of them bowl here during the Saturday youth program,” Bohlen said. “I’m usually here to watch my grand-daughter bowl … I can’t coach my high school bowlers or even give them advice before the first official day of practice. But from what I know, Macy has been throwing a real big ball.”

Though they also finished fourth at state, Bohlen expected bigger things from the boys team.

“We went down with the highest average of the teams down at state,” he said. “But we ran into some tough luck … threw a bunch of splits early on and we couldn’t recover.”

One factor the Comets have to deal with on the road, including Plaza Lanes in Des Moines where the state tournament was held, is adjusting to synthetic lanes.

“The conditions are different from bowling on wooden lanes,” Bohlen said. “The movement of the oil on synthetics will sometimes take away the drive into the pocket. You’ll leave a lot of 8-pins or 10-pins.

“What we’re going to work on this season is to get more revolutions on the ball upon release so we can get that extra drive into the pocket.”

Bohlen incorporates various competitions during practices. One is called “knockout” where a group of bowlers throw at full 10-pin racks while trying to avoid elimination.

“We start out with the first guy throwing an 8 count getting eliminated … then it goes to 9 … then you’ve got to throw a strike to stay alive,” said Bohlen, who often competes with the team.

“One time, Drew (Mitchell) and I were the two men left standing,” Bohlen said of the Comets’ anchorman last season. “And I put him away. That was fun.”

Senior Mitchell, and juniors Kaleb Ross and Hunter Brockney are due to be among the returners from last year’s boys state-qualifying team.

“Another game we have our bowlers do is trying taking out just the 7 and 10 pins every frame,” Bohlen said. “Some don’t like playing it because they want to throw strikes instead, but you need to know how to pick up your spares. That’s what wins a lot of tournaments.”

“Just knocking down one pin on each ball is hard to do. If you can get past the seventh frame with just a 14, that’s pretty good.”

You just won’t get your score on the honors board.