St. Charles East bowlers reaching new heights

St. Charles East’s girls bowling team has given its opposition a good waxing.

A crowning achievement came on Dec. 17, when the Saints won the Blue, Black & Orange invitational that featured 10 girls teams and 10 boys teams firing away at Bowling Green Sports Center in West Chicago.

Naturally, this gave coach Mary Ann Carrell and her girls a strong sense of pride.

“Absolutely,” Carrell said.

Her team entered Thursday’s Upstate Eight Conference crossover against South Elgin at St. Charles Bowl with an overall record of 36-4, 20-0 in the UEC River Division. The Saints started the season 32-0 before losing to Marengo on Jan. 4.

“Not only beating the (St. Charles East) boys, but beating the (St. Charles) North boys. We have that crosstown rivalry besides,” Carrell said.

Boys have an inherent strength advantage but as Carrell said, “Eighty percent of the game is between the ears. We got into their heads with that one.”

A suitable simile, since Carrell is in her fourth year working in St. Charles East’s Learning Resource Center, otherwise known as the library.

A graduate of Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, she started bowling at the age of 8 and now maintains a 160-pin average in her adult league at St. Charles Bowl.

Carrell said there’s an annual bowling outing among St. Charles North and East faculty, and the first year she attended she let loose that, should East start a girls bowling program she wouldn’t mind coaching it. There had been a very good program in the late 1970s, early ’80s that had gone dormant.

Lo and behold, then-athletic director Jerry Krieg was interested, and Carrell put her money where her wristbrace was.

Except for sophomore Laura Crocker, who through Tuesday carried a 166 average on the varsity squad, juniors Vicki Banas (161), Emily Brown (153) and Angela Solis (166) and senior co-captains Allison Heuer (195) and Katherine Sulaitis (186) — an at-large qualifier to the 2011 state finals — have all bowled for Carrell these first three seasons. Senior Taylor Griffon is a captain on the junior varsity squad.

“They’ve just been fun to work with, and I’m real proud of them,” Carrell said. “It’s been interesting starting something like this. I never thought I would, but I was just in the right place at the right time.”

Not to rub it in, but Heuer indeed got a kick out of beating the boys, which earned the girls a measure of respect around school.

“People didn’t believe it,” said Heuer, whose younger sister, Erin, is a freshman bowler.

“It means a lot, because there’s the stereotype of how the boys are always better than the girls,” Allison said. “So when we got to the last round we were just super-excited, and we were on a high, so we knew what we had to do.”

One can celebrate high-profile, midseason victories only so long, however. As Marengo displayed there’s always room for improvement even for a Saints squad that has eclipsed its success of the last two seasons.

“We never really sat down and talked about it, but I think really we all know ourselves that we need to step it up if we want to make it to state, either as an individual or as a team,” said Heuer, a second-cousin to St. Charles North graduate Meghan Heuer.

“I think the loss is actually good, because it keeps us humble and it shows that we need to be focused to keep doing as good as we were.”

A year-round bowler who made the Junior Gold Nationals for the first time last summer, Heuer said that an extra day of practice, on Mondays, has helped the team advance. Both St. Charles high schools boys and girls teams practice together at their home lanes, St. Charles Bowl.

Heuer and Sulaitis also take private lessons with former professional bowler Marty Miller, the coach at Waubonsie Valley; Banas and Crocker practice individually with St. Charles Bowl’s Mike Sopper.

Scholarship money has become a big motivator toward perfection. Sulaitis and Heuer — who bowled a 728 against Jacobs on Dec. 19 and has a personal-best of 736 — are both being recruited by colleges, Carrell said. Heuer is considering offers from McKendree University in Lebanon, Ill., and St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.

“It’s amazing how much money you can get,” Carrell said.

After facing South Elgin on Thursday, the Saints compete on Saturday at Fenton’s Fred Green Classic at Wood Dale Bowl, then have Waubonsie Valley on Jan. 17 before the Upstate Eight Conference “position night” on Jan. 19 at St. Charles Bowl. They’ll bowl at the DeKalb sectional at Mardi Gras Lanes on Feb. 4.

The goal is to qualify more than one bowler downstate as an individual, and send the whole team to the state finals in Rockford on Feb. 10-11.

“My coach calculated our scores of our meets and said if we can bowl like that in the sectional then we can make it to state,” Heuer said.

As co-captain, it’s her responsibility to keep her teammates’ nerves as smooth as the wax on the lanes.

“My goal is at sectional to keep people focused and in a good mood so we have a chance to make state,” she said. “To keep them hyped up and in a good mood, so that we’re all working together.”

The junior ranked

St. Francis junior and St. Charles resident Kyle Bosch, an all-state 6-foot-5, 290-pound offensive tackle, attended the JuniorRank Sports Combine in Phoenix on Jan. 2. He left with an invitation to the 2013 Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl. A Class 5A Illinois High School Football Coaches Association All-State selection, Bosch is one of four Illinoisans invited to play in that all-star game thus far.

Bosch continues to be among the top junior recruits in the state. He’s got 14 scholarship offers, including offers from eight Big Ten schools. Oklahoma State recently visited Bosch, and he’ll visit Alabama on Jan. 28.

Bosch attended the Phoenix combine with younger brother Brennan, a freshman at St. Charles East. Brennan Bosch was the only freshman who participated in the combine.

Do not try this at home

A benefit of being on a high-school coach’s “list-serve” for emails is seeing all the neat things coming up in the sport.

A friendly local track coach’s latest missive noted that Bloom High School, and vault coach Tim Johnson, will offer open vaulting most Sunday afternoons from Jan. 8 through April 29. Open but not free, and only to vaulters, coaches and parents.

Johnson also will host the seventh annual VaultPoleooza on Feb. 4; info is available at vaultchigago.com, which includes alumni such as former state champion Allie Pace of Geneva.

The email also noted that the Illinois Track and Cross Country Coaches Association will host a clinic at St. Charles East on Jan. 28 for people who would like to become track officials.

This is an outstanding fraternity of quality individuals such as West Aurora’s Mike Powers. But as the age of officials is skewed way high there is a need for younger officials such as Jesse Rocha, the former Aurora Central assistant track coach.

doberhelman@dailyherald.com