ShawneeDispatch.com

The Shawnee Mission Northwest girls bowling team turned in its best performances of the season last week.

First, the Cougars reached a new record high at the Shawnee Mission District meet on Thursday.

Northwest broke its week-old scoring record by bowling a 2,057 at the district meet.

The score earned a second place among the five Shawnee Mission High Schools and was 160 pins better than the team's previous best score.

Kelly Cole bowled a pair of 200-plus games to lead Northwest.

Cole did not cement her second 200-plus game until the end of her day when, in her third game of the meet, she was faced with a 6-7-10 split.

Despite the difficulty of the pin placement, Cole knocked down the spare on her way to a 204 and finished third out of 30 bowlers. Sophomore Laura Highland added a 201 game of her own for seventh place and a 175 average. Queral finished in fifth place after rolling a 203 game and collecting a 180 average.

Queral gives the team a lot of experience, Haney said.

"The big thing about Jamie is that she's one of four freshmen in the Sunflower League who are real impact players," Haney said. "They're all on different teams now, but they all bowled in Leagues together almost all of their elementary and middle school careers. She came in and she knew how to throw a very good hook."

A day after the district meet, freshman Jamie Queral bowled a 531 series during the Class 6A regional competition at the Park Lanes Bowling Center on Friday.

She finished in 11th place.

Although Northwest bowled a 1,900, 50 pins over their goal of 1,850, the Cougars finished sixth out of nine teams in the meet.

Queral will travel to Thunderbird lanes in Wichita for Saturday's Kansas 6A bowling championships. Competition in the girls division begins at 1 p.m.

Unfortunately for the Cougar boys, last week proved to be the roughest of the season. Oily lanes and an inability to adjust to them proved to be the Cougars downfall as no male Northwest bowlers qualified for state. Nick Michalski was the Cougars' best performer at regionals with a 573 series and a 191 average.