PHOTO COURTESY OF STALZER PHOTOGRAPHY - The Marshalltown High School girls’ bowling team brings back four bowlers with varsity experience, but just five girls overall. Pictured, from left, are Ariana Villagomez, Rose Massa, Aubrey Webber, Camillya Thomas, Bailey Damman and head coach Dustin Peterson.

The Marshalltown girls’ bowling team enters the winter as the 11th-largest program in the state when combining the enrollment numbers of area schools BCLUW, East Marshall, GMG, Meskwaki, South Tama and West Marshall through cooperative agreements.

The Bobcat girls have just five bowlers.

With participation at an all-time low, Marshalltown will have to make do with what it has — which is the minimum five bowlers to accumulate a team score in dual meets.

Camillya Thomas, one of three seniors on the squad, won’t let the limited numbers bring down her or her team.

“We do need more girls to have a JV team, but with our team, everybody shows up, everybody encourages each other and we play hard,” said Thomas, an East Marshall student. “We don’t think about ‘oh, we don’t have enough girls so we’re not going to give it our best.’ We still get out there on the lanes and we give it our best and we all push each other every day to get better.”

Marshalltown’s varsity lineup graduated four key members of last year’s squad, so duplicating the 4-5 dual-team record of a year ago will be a daunting task for these Bobcats. It also won’t be a driving factor in the daily determination, according to head coach Dustin Peterson.

“The hopes are that every week, we continue to improve,” he said. “We’re going to look at every day and every meet to practice up until the state qualifier. That’s our number one thing.”

The 2025-26 season opened about 450 pins shy of last year’s average score for the Bobcats, but that just goes to show how important the graduating class was. Four varsity starters — Devin Peterson, Sydney May, Kenedy Lammert and Delaney Legg — who scored an average of at least 123 per game — are gone from the lineup, and there’s no newcomers to try to replace them.

“No new girls this year,” coach Peterson said. “We have three bowlers who are stepping into a varsity role that’s new to them, but at the same time they’re all up to the challenge. They keep continuing to get better, so that’s all I can ask for.”

Thomas brings the top returning scoring average back for the Bobcats, having knocked down 148.5 pins per game last season. Fellow seniors Ariana Villagomez and Bailey Damman both return with at least some varsity experience, as does junior Aubrey Webber.

Rose Massa, a senior, moves up from last year’s junior varsity squad to round out the five-player Bobcat lineup.

“It doesn’t matter what school we come from, we still come together as one team,” said Thomas. “At the end of the day we’re all one.

“We want to accomplish going to state, but most of all it’s having fun.”