HP Lanes, home of The Ohio State Bowling Club. Credit: Cody Machan | Student Reporter
After pinning down a successful run in its 2021-22 season, the Buckeye Bowling Club looks to build on the momentum this year as a team.
The Buckeye Bowling Club season got underway in October with the Ohio Bowling Conference tournaments Oct. 1 and will continue with the C300 Western Shootout event Sunday.
The Buckeye bowlers come off an eventful 2021-22 campaign that saw the women’s team win the Collegiate Club National Championship and the men’s team end with multiple bowlers finishing in the top five at tournaments.
With expectations high, head coach Jeff Robinson’s message to the team is not to let the pressure of repeating previous successes get to them and to continue to play together as a unit.
“That’s how we succeed,” Robinson said. “That’s how a player, when they leave here and go to work somewhere, is going to succeed because they’re going to be part of a team.”
The teams practice together on Tuesdays and Thursdays at HP Lanes in Columbus, and a typical practice consists of warm-up stretches, practice games, one-on-one coaching and spare shooting.
Club secretary and second-year bowler Abbey Ambroza said while team practice helps, outside practice and focusing on individual weaknesses are encouraged by coaches and are key to team improvement.
“I’ll go Wednesday and Friday, after our practices, and I’ll take what they said the night before,” Ambroza said. “I would focus on that the first 30 minutes, and then I’ll do a couple of games just to work on spares.”
With many new first-and second-years joining the teams, club president and third-year bowler Joey Harrison believes the younger bowlers will experience a learning curve.
“These people have been bowling for a while,” Harrison said. “But college bowling is so much different. I’m sure our first tournament will be a rude awakening for some.”
Regardless of how the season unfolds, Harrison and Ambroza said the players have great personalities and work ethics to keep them together through hard times.
“We all just get along,” Ambroza said. “It doesn’t matter if something little happens outside of the bowling alley, and, like, we don’t agree on something. The second we step inside of practice or a tournament, it gets dropped. We just feed off each other’s energy.”
