2/10/23
By Kevin Taylor Alma Schools
Last year, when one door closed, Maddy Click was eager to open another one. The former Lady Airedale softball player wasn’t ready to stop competing.
So she reached out to Alma bowling coach Carole Medlock.
“My sophomore year, I had just gotten out of softball and I was looking for a team sport,” Click said. “At first, I was going to go to ROTC, but that wasn’t for me. I was like, ‘What can I join?’ And I was like, ‘Bowling.’
“Obviously, Ms. Medlock was the coach and I had known her for a while. She said, ‘You should join bowling.’ I was like, ‘Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t?’
“(But) I ended up really liking it.”
On Wednesday, Click bowled a three-score total of 387 to punch her ticket to today’s 5A state tournament in Jonesboro.
Click didn’t just earn a ticket to the state tournament, she dominated by rolling a 149 in her third set.
“I was very surprised, to be honest,” Click said. “When we went to the conference yesterday (Wednesday) I felt very nervous. But the moment I stepped out there it felt just like practice. I calmed myself down a little and said, you can’t let yourself get caught up in this.”
“Maddy is a great kid, a great competitor,” Meyers said. “She always wants to do her best, and she doesn’t get frustrated, which I like about her. The last couple of matches she’s been bowling pretty well, and yesterday she really did a good job of being consistent, and it paid off.”
Click felt like she did well as a junior, though it took some early tweaking to find her groove. Click said before last year she had only bowled for fun.
“Last year I didn't do too badly,” Click said. “I started really bad, but after I learned how the lanes work, and the ball, and the oil, it started getting better.”
It’s been a little bit of a different year for Click and the Alma bowlers, too. Meyers stepped in over the Christmas holidays to assume the coaching duties after Medlock retired.
“He’s doing really well for kind of just getting thrown into it,” Click said. “He’s learned his stuff, and pretty fast. I didn’t expect him to just understand a lot of it, but he does.
“He gets it.”
Friday’s state tournament will consist of five teams competing - Arkansas High, Mountain Home, Siloam Springs, Greenwood, and Harrison.
There are five individual bowlers among that group, too, including Click.
Russellville’s Joy Skaggs posted the highest individual score at Wednesday’s conference meet, a three-game total of 412.
The five boys’ teams include Lakeside, Lake Hamilton, Hot Springs, Siloam Springs, and Mountain Home.
Click said she enjoyed representing her school.
“It’s almost like every sport,” she said. “You get these medals and trophies, to show how good your school is. It’s kind of what this is, it’s just a little less known.”