Waukon bowling teams finish around .500 mark, program experiences history-making season under new first-year head coach Kim Shelton

The Waukon bowling teams provided first-year head coach Kim Shelton with a memorable inaugural season at the helm during this 2021-2022 campaign, and for a number of different reasons. The pinnacle of that memorable season was the history that was made, fueled by the hard work and fun experienced by each squad of at least a dozen bowlers, with the Waukon girls bowling team rolling its way to a 4-5 season record and the Indian boys bowling to a 5-4 dual match mark this season.

Most of that history was made at the ideal time this season, as, for the first time in program history, the Waukon boys had two bowlers qualify for this year’s Class 1A State Tournament. With the only other State Tournament appearance for Waukon bowling being a solo appearance by 2020 Waukon High School graduate Matt Rozzell during his sophomore campaign in 2018, this year saw senior Chase Boydston and junior Cody Huinker both reach that season grand finale for the bowling Tribe’s first-ever multiple State qualification.

“Taking two bowlers to State my first year as a coach was amazing,” Coach Shelton said. “I’m very proud of both of these two boys and the whole team, and those that came down to support their fellow bowlers. It will make the sport a little better known and, hopefully, will encourage more kids to join.”

Furthering that history at the State Tournament, Huinker etched his name deeper into program notoriety by recording the program’s best-ever finish at that season grand finale, bettering Rozzell’s 15th-place finish from four seasons earlier with a sixth-place medal-winning finish among Class 1A’s elite. In making his final high school bowling season one to remember, Boydston finished 32nd among this season’s Class 1A State Tournament elite.

What’s more, Huinker rolled his way to his sixth-place finish with a new single-game program record of 280 pins. That rewriting of the program’s one-game standard marked the second raising of that mark this season, as junior Cael Rethwisch first bested Rozzell’s previous school record of 268 pins with an effort of 269 pins in late January, with Huinker equaling that new standard a short time later before rolling his new 280-pin mark at State.

Huinker’s history-making season started in early January, as he also rewrote the bowling Tribe’s single-series school record. He rolled a 492 series that improved the previous single-series school record of 485 that Rozzell had rolled during his senior season in 2020.

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