It’s the winter time. The NFL and NBA are in full swing, and Bulldog basketball is on the horizon. To some, that seems like enough for one season. Well, those people would be wrong, because the winter also marks the beginning of one of Garfield’s more successful teams: the bowling team.

Yes, bowling is a club sport, and yes the Professional Bowlers Association’s marketing campaign is full of clowns rivaling that of Money Tree and Flynn’s Carpet Cents for trying to brainwash our minds into thinking that “Sunday is for bowling.” However, I’ve got to give some love to the bowling squad, being that I have about 60 taped bowling matches from the early 90’s and am familiar with such phrases as “turkey,” “approach,” and “open-frame.”

Also, even though they declined to attend, the bowling “A” team qualified for the state bowling tournament last year as a whole, something that not many Garfield teams can say they did.

The bowling team consists of an “A” team and a “B” team, each consisting of five bowlers. In a match, each player bowls three games, and if they have a higher overall pin total than their opponents, they win.

Since bowling is a club sport, the team doesn’t play in a specified conference such as KingCo 4A.

“We mostly play people from the suburbs like Redmond, Renton, and stuff like that,” said junior bowler Amia Kane.

Senior captain Nick Pleasants and junior Ian Collicot return from last year’s A team, looking to make another run at state.

“A team is going to be good,” said Kane, “but B team is probably only better than one other team.”

Although the A squad has high hopes for the upcoming couple of months, the season did start with s bit of controversy, as league regulations placed restrictions on who could be on one team. According to the rules, if a team wants to bowl in the state tournament, then it is not allowed to be co-ed.

As a result, the A team is all-male.

“Me and Emily (Fletcher) are about as good as two of the guys,” said Kane, “but I guess this in a way settled arguments about who would be put where anyway.”

Despite this, the bowling team remains tight in and out of the alley, and soon comes the bowling team sleepover, in which members of A team, B team, and former Bulldog bowlers are invited.

So while you are getting spoiled by Tony Wroten and Dre Taylor on the hardwood, keep an eye out for bowling team. Even though they haven’t even been included in our power rankings, they are quietly climbing up the ranks of Garfield’s sports food chain.