Bowling team wins state championship with first undefeated season
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St. Charles, MI (WNEM) — It was the prophetic wisdom or maybe stubbornness of one grandpa that got his grandson to lace up his bowling shoes every week.
“When me and him were born, my grandpa first said ‘I’m gonna turn these kids into bowlers.’ And he got his wish,” said Nicholas Armstrong.
These kids are Nicholas and Brandon Armstrong, and they’ve got matching bowling tattoos.
“It says life or death, brothers forever,” Nicholas said.
The two are seniors at St. Charles High School and in their final season, wanted to end a decade-long bowling championship drought.
“It’s a grind. You know, it’s all one day,” said Mark Faupel, St. Charles bowling coach.
Faupel has been the bowling coach for 16 years including the last time they won the championship and all the painfully close second places in between.
“It’s not a process where you have a couple of weeks like basketball where you have a day to prepare. You have one day,” Faupel said.
Of course, it came down to the final ball.
“We had to sit and watch our anchorman struck out, or he doubled on the 10th frame, forcing their anchorman to double on the 10th frame. He got the first one and didn’t get the second one, and so when he didn’t get the second one, we were state champs,” Faupel said.
And just like that, the drought was over. Even more impressive, their only ever undefeated season was intact.
“I think it’s nice that we’re getting recognized because like Mark said, we don’t get a whole lot of recognition and people just don’t consider it a sport even though we put our heart and soul into everything that we do,” Nicholas said.
Though Nicholas’ grandpa wasn’t able to be there in person due to COVID-19, he watched the livestream and was one of the boys’ first calls.
“He was just over the moon about it, he was so glad that we were able to pull through and get the win,” Nicholas said.
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