Bridges, Whitehurst duplicate WAC honors
When the 2022 Western Athletic Conference bowling season started for both girls’ and boys’ teams, there was one thing for certain.
Holly Bridges and Kaden Whitehurst would be at the top of the favorites list to repeat their 2021 WAC Bowler of the Year Awards. However, it would not be easy because there were elite bowlers from Great Bend, Liberal and Dodge City who would put a monumental challenge to their repeat dreams.
In the end, however, Bridges and Whitehurst, members of Garden City High School’s girls’ and boys’ teams survived and came away with WAC Bowlers of the Year honors while also leading their respective teams to WAC titles.
In many respects it appears the performances of both Bridges and Whitehurst go hand-in-hand. They have both been varsity bowlers since their freshman seasons of 2019. Both have garnered statewide attention with high finishes at both regular season and state championship events.
Whitehurst grabbed the most attention his sophomore season by rolling a perfect 300 game en route to capturing a Class 6A state individual gold medal. Bridges was been a top 10 finisher in multiple seasons.
Both signed college letters-of-intent to attend Ottawa University in the fall of 2022 to compete for the Braves’ women’s and men’s programs.
Now, they own a pair of WAC top individual awards. Nevertheless, it certainly did not come on a silver platter donated by the WAC opposition.
Girls Bowler of the Year: Holly Bridges, Garden City, Sr.
Bridges saw a 78-pin lead nearly disappear in the final competition day at the WAC Championship when she rolled a 603 series only to see Great Bend’s Kaylin Wahlmeier sizzle with a 666 total to leave Bridges with a 15-pin total advantage over the course of six head-to-head duals and the final WAC championship day.
“I think one thing that helped me a lot is that I definitely feel like our (team) chemistry was a lot stronger than last year,” said Bridges, the lone senior on the six-player varsity roster. “The group bowling this year were friends and we bowed for each other.”
Bridges credited the bond the team formed in the offseason for much of the team’s success. Despite being young by senior/underclass bowlers, the team had two new faces on the squad – freshmen Kyleigh Whitehurst (Kaden’s younger sister) and Harlie Leeper (younger sister to Lily Leeper).
“I think we’ve felt all along that we can do great things if everybody puts in their work and does their part,” Bridges said. “The WAC Player of the Year is an honor, but the team championship means so much more. It’s a proud accomplishment because it shows all the hard work is paying off.”
Despite her diminutive height, Bridges brings an edge when she hits the bowling alley and then the lanes.
“I kind of like that feeling of intimidating,” she said with a big smile that belies her killer instinct on the lanes. “I’ve always carried it with me.”
Bridges had anticipated a battle at the start of the season with another Great Bend bowler, Paige Wagner, who was the 2020 WAC Bowler of the Year. However, Wagner suffered a season-ending injury at the first match of the season in January, sidelining her for the rest of the year.
“Paige had been my biggest competitor and a good friend,” Bridges said of her rival. “But Kaylin proved to be a big challenger, too. There are many good bowlers in the WAC and they have pushed me a lot. They are not going to give me a break. Kaylin gave me a battle all the way.”
It has been a whirlwind high school career for Bridges, having bowled on teams that have finished second, third and second in the Class 6A state tournament. She would like to cap her career off with that elusive championship trophy and medal.
“I’ve done my best to show these (younger) bowlers that we want to keep the tradition going,” Bridges said. “We want to leave something behind for the bowlers who will be coming up. It is not handed to you. You have to go out and earn it. I have told them about the past (accomplishments) and pushed them to do their best. To want to do more.”
Bridges continued her impressive senior campaign by taking the gold medal at the 6A regional in Wichita on Feb. 24 (630 series), leaving only the state tournament on March 3 at North Rock Lanes in Wichita to write the final page of her prep career.
“I do like the lanes at North Rock,” Bridges said. “The conditions are always good and they give you a good pattern to shoot. I love the atmosphere there and I just tell myself that it is going to be a good day and we are going to bowl well. I want to go out with a bang. I’ve never complained about bowling there.”
Boys Bowler of the Year: Kaden Whitehurst, Garden City, Sr.
Since he first stepped on the lanes in his freshman season, Garden City bowler Kaden Whitehurst seemed destined for success.
He, along with sisters, are children of the owners of Garden Bowl, one of two bowling centers in his hometown. Bowling was just a way of life.
Now, in his fourth and final season of high school bowling, there has been many successes to celebrate.
He has won a state individual Class 6A bowling championship, rolling a perfect 300 game in his sophomore season to win the title. In his junior and senior years, his Buffalo team captured Western Athletic Conference titles and he just recently added the WAC Bowler of the Year honor for the second straight year to his list of accomplishments.
Midway through his senior season, he rolled an 837 series for three-game series that included games of 278-279-280, marking the highest series in Kansas prep boys bowling since 2016.
In his journey to repeating as WAC Bowler of the Year, Whitehurst hit a detour with his scores midway through the 2022 campaign. Struggling more than ever in his four-year career, Whitehurst came home from a road match where none of his three-game performance contributed to the team score, and proceeded to go to his home lanes and practiced 15 games well into the late evening hours in search of a fix.
He found it, fixed it, and then finished off the WAC season by winning the final event of the schedule to outduel his teammate, KJ Burns, by an average of nearly three pins per game, finishing with a 211.19 average.
“Overall, I think we had high expectations for the team to win WAC first,” Whitehurst said. “And I’ve always set high expectations for myself, so winning WAC again as a team, and then the individual felt pretty big. I took my falls with some of those scores, but the team was still winning. I just stepped up to get it fixed and it all has worked out.”
As the ringleader of the WAC championship team, Whitehurst and his teammates compiled perhaps the most impressive conference performance in the program’s history, winning 84 of a possible 87 points against the three WAC opponents.
“We’ll take it but I’m pretty sure we all knew we could do it,” Whitehurst said of repeating the WAC team title. “We knew if one had a bad day, somebody else would succeed. The chemistry has grown and the trust is higher this year.”
Whitehurst said he has been front and center with the focus on his bowling expectations since his freshman season, but he has not dodged the spotlight one bit.
“There’s pressure, but I like the pressure,” he said. “I’m the anchor on our Baker format, so I just like being in that position.”
Whitehurst saw his numbers drop from a 219 average his junior year to 211 this season, perhaps due in part of doubling up by playing basketball for the Buffs.
“I don’t like using excuses, but sometimes I think it is difficult to focus with two sports at the same time,” he said, referring to a couple of dates where both bowling and basketball were scheduled and he would make a fast trip home to don his basketball uniform for the Buffs. “I love playing basketball. The new coach let me in both so I’m appreciative of my coaches working it out.”
Having signed his letter-of-intent with Ottawa in November also relieved the recruiting pressure for Whitehurst.
“It took a lot off my plate,” Whitehurst said. “I had colleges from all over the country coming for me, and talking to me about what they had to offer. Ottawa was just the school that felt right. I don’t know how it will play out in college, but maybe it will help me decide if it’s the path to being a pro bowler.”
The final goals of the season remain quite simple for Whitehurst. Qualify the team for the 6A state (they di with a runner-up finish to Derby), go to state and win the championship (the program won its first in 2016), and if an individual title accompanies it, so much the better.
“Most of us have grown up together and it would be great if all our hard will pay off,” Whitehurst said. “This is the year for us. Not making state in 2021 was a real boost for us to work hard to get better.”
