Garden City’s Whitehurst, Bridges strike it big in WAC bowling

When the 2020 Western Athletic Conference bowling season drew to a close, the Great Bend girls and boys teams had come up short in their chase for the WAC title, but the consolation came in the form of their top two junior class bowlers – Paige Wagner and Bryce Moore – garnered Bowler of the Year honors.

So it would figure that those two would once again be in the mix to repeat those accomplishments in 2021. 

But lurking close behind were a pair of bowlers a year younger from Garden City – Holly Bridges for the Lady Buffs and Kaden Whitehurst for the boys – who had been third and second in the individual all-WAC race in 2020 while helping their teams to claim league team championships.

To nobody’s surprise, those four bowlers were in the final mix on the final day of league competition at Spare Tyme Bowl in Dodge City, with the two Great Bend bowlers holding slender leads on the two Garden City keglers.

But after the 3-game series totals were compiled for the final numbers of the season, which includes 6 matches of double round-robin competition among the 4 competing schools, both Bridges and Whitehurst had overtaken Wagner and Moore to claim the 2021 Bowler of the Year honors.

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Girls Bowler of the Year: Holly Bridges, Garden City

The 2021 season became somewhat of redemption for Bridges, who had been the runner-up her freshman season for the individual title with an average of 192.33, only to drop off to a 186.76 average her sophomore year and finish third.

Going into the final WAC Championship event, Bridges trailed Wagner in average by a slender margin of 205.61 to 203.93. But the Lady Buffs No. 1 bowler saved her best for this day, rolling her top series in competition with a 743 total (247-258-238) while Wagner had an off day with a 598 series. That 145-pin difference resulted in Bridges’ season average increasing to 211.22 while Wagner’s dropped to 204.71.

“Winning WAC Bowler of the Year is a huge accomplishment for me,” Bridges said afterward. “The past two years I’ve been so close, and this year I just wanted to grab and take it myself. Paige and I bowl a lot of outside (school) events, and she’s just always been above me. She had an off day, and I had my best day.”

Heading into the WAC Championship, which was delayed one day due to frigid winter temperatures and hazardous travel conditions, Bridges said she tried to focus on what she was doing and block everything else out.

“We were bowling in different areas of the alleys, so I really didn’t see how she was doing until after we were done,” Bridges said. “Early on, I could tell I was in the zone, so I knew all I had to do was keep doing that and I’d see how I did when I finished.”

Bridges’ father told her that he was fairly certain that she had overtaken Wagner, but she waited to celebrate until after the final results had been tabulated.

“That’s when Kaden (Whitehurst, Garden boys Bowler of the Year) came and told me I’d won,” she recalled. “I told him that he was joking, but when I heard it from coach (Kip Nichols), I just had this feeling of accomplishment and was very happy.”

Many things occurred during her junior year that translated into a big improvement of nearly 25-pins in her average per game.

“The biggest area I worked on a tremendous amount was my spare shot,” Bridges said. “I really worked hard on my left to right side shots by shooting more straight. I just feel more comfortable when I’m going to the right side (6-9-10 pins) as opposed to the left (4-7-8). Going to the left it just feels like I’m throwing across my body and it doesn’t feel as comfortable.”

In her freshman and sophomore seasons, Bridges had upper-class teammates who had been part of a state championship team, so she could somewhat be back in the shadows. This year, though, she is the veteran on the team and has assumed more leadership responsibilities with an almost all-new cast of teammates.

“I’m very open to seeing how they are doing and if they ask me, I just try to tell this is how I do it,” she said. “Some of the girls have grown tremendously during the season (team runner-up to Great Bend) and I just try to keep providing them positive vibes.”

With the last portion of the 2021 season yet to be completed (Regionals on Feb. 25 and State on March 5), Bridges has a few more goals to accomplish – qualify the team for state and then compete for top honors individually as well.

“On those two days, you have to bring your “A” game to be able to compete with the best,” Bridges said.

For now, however, Bridges can enjoy being the 2021 “Best” female bowler in the Western Athletic Conference.

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Boys Bowler of the Year: Kaden Whitehurst, Garden City

When the 2021 bowling season started for Garden City and Kaden Whitehurst the first week of January, the Buffaloes’ junior knew that for him to garner additional honors he would have to improve even more than he had from his freshman to sophomore seasons.

That would be saying a lot, since Whitehurst had improved his average score per game from 186.95 to 201.05 his sophomore campaign and was the individual WAC runner-up to Great Bend’s Bryce Moore. Whitehurst’s Buffs did claim the league team title before the teams headed to postseason.

Whitehurst shined in the final two weeks of his sophomore year, helping the Buffs to earn a spot at the 6A state tournament where he claimed the individual gold medal with a 759 series that included a perfect 300 game to win by 8 pins of Spencer Griffin of Olathe Northwest. His score contributed to the Buffs winning third place as a team.

His goal for his junior year was to improve areas of his game that he saw as deficient. He knew that Moore would be his biggest challenge for individual honors and that the Buffs, with nearly all the team returning from 2020, would be battling for the top spot once again.

“Oh yes, I wanted the WAC Bowler of the Year,” said Whitehurst, who had been in the top 6 as a freshman and runner-up to Moore as a sophomore. “Definitely my spare shooting improved a lot this year and my mental game got so much better.”

Whitehurst plays a powerful ball which allows him to create a mix of the pins upon impact that results in a lot of strikes.

“I’ve definitely increased my speed and it helps pin action,” Whitehurst said. “It’s not that I throw bad shots, but when my ball hits light or heavy, I get better action. If I start out and it doesn’t look right, I adjust my approach and the line of the ball.”

One would expect that Whitehurst would be a natural at the game, coming from a family whose father owns Garden Bowl and his older sister, Ryleigh, was on a GCHS Lady Buffs’ state championship team and was a state runner-up herself.

But he said it wasn’t until he moved into his freshman season that he seriously considered bowling for the high school team.

“Mostly in middle school I played basketball and didn’t really bowl in youth competition,” Whitehurst said. “I liked bowling, just not competing in it. But that all changed when Ryleigh had the success she did for the high school team.”

Whitehurst said she encouraged him to bowl on the high school team (there are 4 classes in between them), and he didn’t like losing to his sister. 

“It just s..ks losing to your sister,” he said with a laugh. “But she’s encouraged me a lot. My dad taught me the fundamentals, but I’ve never really had a personal coach. Mostly I think I’m self-taught, but my dad taught me the basics.”

This year, Whitehurst has juggled his schedule between competing for the bowling and junior varsity basketball teams, a rarity at GCHS.

“I think I’ve only missed a couple of the basketball games due to conflicts with bowling,” Whitehurst said. “I’m in much better physical condition now and I think it has helped my stamina when we’re bowling a lot of games in one day. I don’t get as tired as I did before.”

The honors secured for his junior year, Whitehurst has goals of repeating his individual title at state, but also wants to bowl on a state championship team before he graduates. After that, he hopes to compete at the collegiate level.

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WAC Bowling Championships
2021 Season Final Results

Boys Team Standings

	School	Points
1	Garden City	71.5
2	Great Bend	59.0
3	Liberal	38.5
4	Dodge City	6.0

Boys Individual Standings

	All-WAC First Team	School	Season Avg.
1	Kaden Whitehurst	Garden City	219.6
2	Bryce Moore	Great Bend	216.2
3	Caleb Carr	Garden City	207.5
4	Dionicio Resendiz	Garden City	195.3
5	Ty Weilert	Garden City	191.3
6	Corbin Stanley	Great Bend	189.6
	Second Team
7	Jayce Farr	Garden City	186.6
8	Caleb Murphy	Great Bend	183.8
9	Kaden Strasser	Garden City	183.6
10	Josh King	Liberal	179.2
11	Colby Bremenkamp	Liberal	174.2
12	Cooper Clumsky	Liberal	173.6

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Girls Team Standings

	School	Points
1	Great Bend	64
2	Garden City	57
3	Dodge City	40
4	Liberal	13

Girls Individual Standings

	All-WAC First Team	School	Season Avg.
1	Holly Bridges	Garden City	211.22
2	Paige Wagner	Great Bend	204.71
3	Kaylin Wahlmeier	Great Bend	188.67
4	Camryn Lenz	Dodge City	185.14
5	Brooke Ptacek	Garden City	179.95
6	Sahara Rziha	Great Bend	173.67
	Second Team
7	Addie Ehrlich	Great Bend	163.66
8	Hope Resendiz	Garden City	161.83
9	Jaden Rabe	Dodge City	157.38
10	LilyAnn Leeper	Garden City	157.33
11	Taylor Lenz	Dodge City	154.57
12	Anna Ridgway	Dodge City	151.23

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