In a season marked by the team’s first league tourney title, Sequim High’s bowling squad can add another jewel to their 2023-24 crown: state academic champs.
The Wolves’ varsity six earned the program’s third overall academic state title and first since back-to-back titles in 2011-12 and 2012-13.
This year’s team of Kimberly Heintz, Cooper Hiatt, Morgan Kayser, Skylar Kryzworz, Victoria Nava and Nikoline Updike earned a combined 3.895 grade-point-average to top all class 2A teams in Washington state.
“I don’t know what it is; I seemed to have a pretty good group,” said SHS head coach Randy Perry, who coached SHS’s previous academic title winners.
“As a coach that’s more important,” he said of the academic honor. “It’s nice to see girls get that extra reward, for their college portfolio.”
Like other prep sports, bowling team members have to balance travel time, and student-athletes often get some of their studying done on the bus. Perry said his players take it to another level, studying between games and even the three to five minutes between frames.
“They all kind of feed off each other when it comes to academic stuff,” he said. “Many of them take some of the same classes.”
Perry said he doesn’t put much pressure on his team members to put in extra time until they show some acumen on the lanes, and that helps newcomers learn how to balance books and their chosen sport.
Sequim’s was the second-highest GPA among all bowling teams regardless of classification. Decatur took the 4A title with a 3.929 mark while Gig Harbor was the top 3A team with a 3.871 GPA. Blaine’s bowlers won the 1A title with a 3.654 GPA.
There were no other Olympic League teams earning an academic title for the winter 2023-24 season; Forks’ girls wrestlers won 2B academic state title with combined 3.67 grade-point-average.
Perry said Sequim has a good shot to repeat as academic champs for the second time in the program’s history, with five of the six varsity qualifiers eligible to come back next year and several of the next-player-up from the juniors varsity ranks having very high academic backgrounds.
“We’re going to be as high or higher [in GPA next season],” he said.
See Washington state’s other high school winter season academic champs at tinyurl.com/SEQbowltitle.
