Eagle bowling mixing returnees with big freshman group

Colin Peters, The Oskaloosa Herald, Iowa
·1 min read

Nov. 21—PELLA — Rod Blunck enters his 21st year leading the Pella Christian bowling program that loses four kids to graduation and will have a new home this winter with the closing down of the Pella bowling alley.

Blunck's Eagles will use Oskaloosa as their home alley this year with a group that has a couple of returnees and several newcomers.

Pella Christian will return the likes of Dani Roose, Emmalee Steen and Caitlin Veenstra on the girls side with Evan DeJong, Caleb Seieroe, Alex Van Gorp and Andrew VanKooten all back for the boys.

Roose is the best returner for the girls averaging 128.8 pins last year while VanKooten averaged a team-best 150.8 pins per game for the boys.

As far as newcomers go, six of the 17 kids out for the teams this year are freshman. For the girls, Macy VanderHart is the only one that competed in the youth league and should have a good chance to grab a varsity spot.

"We have several freshmen this season and two new exchange students," Blunck said. "None of those kids have much experience, but they're willing to learn and they've fit in with the rest of the kids very well. I think all the meets have a certain amount of challenges and that's part of the fun of competition. We will have the schools that we have competed against the last few years, but we added Isaac Newton Christian Academy this season. That should be a fun addition."

Colin Peters can be reached at 641-672-2581, by email at cpeters@oskyherald.com or on Twitter @ColinPetersOH.