The Marshalltown girls bowling team hosted Southeast Polk on Monday in its first home meet since Dec. 18, and though the Bobcat girls had chances to beat the Rams they eventually lost, 2,337-2,135.

MHS was without a regular competitor in Kylee Witt, who had to miss the meet due to illness, but head coach DJ Wilder said his girls can’t fall back on that excuse for why they lost.

“Every one of these girls can shoot good, they just don’t do it enough,” Wilder said. “Did we miss Kylee tonight? Yes, but it’s always next-man in and next-person up. You have to be ready to go when your number is called.”

There were moments of great play by many of the girls, but no one seemed to put together a complete series. Freshman Sydney Dannen was the closest to accomplishing that, as she finished with a team-high series of 339. Dannen rolled a 149 in her first game but went 41 pins better in her second for a 190.

Emily Diggins had an inverse series to Dannen, as she started her day with a 196 but rolled a 129 in her second game to finish with a 325. Ashly Wiegand was third with a 294, followed by Jordan May with a 262, Ashlyn Rutledge with a 221 and Hannah Slifer with a 220.

Dannen not only was the most consistent girl in the individual series, she anchored the Baker games as Marshalltown went 156, 134, 124, 123 and 157. Wilder said considering she is just a freshman, Dannen should have a bright future ahead of her.

“She is nothing but onward and upward,” Wilder said. “It’s nice having freshmen like that. We’ve got a very, very strong and good young class coming up, boys and girls. We even have some eighth-graders in the youth league that could be some potential hitters too, so the future looks very good, but we aren’t done with this one yet. Sydney is going to have to be that person we can lean on to say, ‘Sydney can do it so we are good.'”

Wilder said the rest of his girls have the ability to compete at a high level, they just struggle with doing so on a consistent basis.

“When we meet at the end of the year that’s going to be the key word for them, consistency,” he said. “We told them a couple of weeks ago that we’ve taken some bad beats on the road, we went to Ottumwa and bowled against a really, really good Ottumwa team and shot our best score, but they just shot better. They shot their best series on the road against a really good opponent.”

The dual season is over for Marshalltown but now the tournament season begins. Wilder said it’s not out of the realm of possibility for his girls to compete well or even win the CIML Iowa Conference meet at Wayward Social on Thursday, starting at noon. In fact, he said the girls could even make a good showing at the state-qualifying meet on Feb. 12 at Bowlerama in Des Moines.

“They have the ability to have a successful conference meet and have a successful substate meet. They can do it, they just have to believe in themselves,” Wilder said. “It’s all still out there for them, as a team and individually. I don’t see why any one of the girls couldn’t do something on an individual basis, they just have to be able to pull it all together next week when it comes down.”