T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

A long first half of the season wrapped up for the Marshalltown girls bowling team on Tuesday night when it hosted Fort Dodge at Wayward Social.

The Bobcats seemed a bit down throughout the contest, lacking their usual peppy attitude, and though they showed some glimpses of great bowling they eventually fell to the Dodgers, 2,412-2,217.

MHS head coach DJ Wilder said his girls have done a great job so far this season through the first seven meets, but on Tuesday it was obvious they were ready for some time off.

“This team really needs the break,” he said. “We are going to have a practice tomorrow and then we are going to have a little Christmas party on Thursday and then I don’t want to see them again until after the break. They need time away, I have a couple of hurt wrists, a couple of hurt knees, and we just need to get away from it for a while.”

In the first round of the individual series nearly all the Bobcats (4-3) were trailing behind their season averages, except for Emily Diggins who finished with a 165 in her first 10 frames.

Before the start of the second game Wilder pulled his girls aside for a pep talk and his words seemed to get through, as five of the six Bobcats improved in their second round.

“Bowling is one of those sports where I really wish we could call a timeout and regroup,” Wilder said. “That’s all they really needed, they needed to group together and talk it out, say to each other, ‘OK that’s over, now let’s go.'”

Diggins was the high individual series, going for a 334 to lead the way, and she was followed by Ashly Wiegand with a 296, Sydney Dannen with a 291, Kylee Witt with a 282, Hannah Slifer with a 254 and Ashlyn Rutledge with a 250. Wiegand, Dannen, Witt and Rutledge all improved in their second round by at least 30 pins, while Diggins went up by five.

In the Baker games the girls started hot with a 186, but they came back down with a 114, 146 and 126 in the next three games before finishing off with a 188 for a total Baker score of 760.

Fort Dodge was led by Leah Sanck with a 375, which was higher than all but one of the individual series from the Dodger boys. Fort Dodge also had an 809 in its Bakers to hold off any comeback attempt from Marshalltown.

Wilder said what has plagued his team in its losses this season has been its volatile nature at times.

“My big thing with them is consistency, we can’t have those down moments and then these up moments,” he said. “Even if it’s in the middle, it’s got to be consistently in the middle, and they have to trust and believe in themselves. I think they believe in me, I feel like they trust me, but right now they are lacking the trust in themselves to do what they need to do.”

Of all of his girls though, Wilder said Diggins has emerged as a great calming force, and that’s because she knows how to keep her game going even when things are necessarily going her way.

“She is giving us that consistency and I think if any of the other girls were to just sit back and watch and see that they could recognize it,” Wilder said. “She’s just consistent, she’s never too high, never too low, just right down the middle. That’s all we need right now, if we could have everybody shoot 330s then we would be a on a good track. We can’t have a 334 and a couple of 250s, if we can get everyone up to that 340s range and be consistent we’d be fine. I don’t need them to be the boys, I need them to be themselves.”

While they didn’t go into the break with a win, Wilder said he is proud of how far his girls have come in a short time this season and they should be even stronger when action starts back up next semester.

“These kids deserve it, they’ve worked so hard these last seven weeks to get to where we are now and they are a little burnt, so we need to give them a little break,” he said.