Shawnee Mission East’s Unified Bowling team is the first-ever Shawnee Mission squad to win a state title in the relatively new sport.
Catch up quick: The Lancers brought home the Kansas Class 6A Unified Bowling title on Nov. 14, racking up a pin total of 1,026 at the state tournament in Topeka.
Coach Sheryl Kaplan said the students knew they could pull it off and were really excited to see that belief come true.
Key quote: “[The team] is floating on their win,” Kaplan said. “Hopefully next year, we’ll have a strong team again — but we’ll have to replace, I think, eight seniors from our team.”
What is Unified Bowling?
It’s bowling comprised of teams that have athletes with special needs playing alongside teammates without special needs.
- John Johnson, the former athletic director at Shawnee Mission South, helped pave the way for the the Kansas High School Activities Association to approve Unified Bowling as a championship-level sport two years ago.
- KSHSAA officially recognized Unified Bowling as an official sport with its own state title last year — and SM South hosted the first championship tournament, which was won by Eisenhower High School in Goddard.
Championship details: Kaplan said the first two games of the tournament weren’t great, but the Lancers turned it around by the third game.
- When she looked up during the third game, Kaplan said, there were five consecutive strikes on the board.
- Then, the player who bowled in the 10th frame got three strikes, Kaplan said.
- “That just kind of got the momentum going and they were pumped about that during the remaining four games,” Kaplan said. “We won by a fairly significant amount of pins.”
