Hodag bowling club enters year with fourth team

There will be even more bowling for the coaches of the Rhinelander area club bowling team to keep track of this fall.

An increase in participation has lead to the addition of a third high school-level team for the program. It will field a Rhinelander High School varsity boys team, a Rhinelander/Elcho varsity girls team and a Rhinelander/Three Lakes co-ed JV team. That’s in addition to the Rhinelander middle school team as the Hodags get ready to begin the Wisconsin High School Bowling Club District 9 season Sunday at Dale’s Weston Lanes.

Twenty-one bowlers and four teams is one of the largest turnouts the program has had entering the season. There are 16 bowlers on the high school side, eight boys and eight girls, and five in the middle school ranks.

“I wasn’t expecting the numbers that we had show up, show up,” said Cory Dellenbach, who oversees the programs girls’ and middle school squads. “We made a push more toward the middle school age, trying to build that up a little bit and got high schoolers out instead.”

Three high school squads was not the outcome the team expected to have this year, but one made out of necessity based on the makeup of the team. Seven of the eight boys on the high school side reside within the School District of Rhinelander while the eighth, sophomore Oren Alsager, lives in the Three Lakes School District. Because Rhinelander already had seven bowlers from within its own district, league rules prevented the team from forming a varsity co-op with Three Lakes — something it has done in years past with lower numbers. The JV route became a necessity to allow Alsager an opportunity to bowl, but comes with the added benefit of allowing some of the newer bowlers on the squad a chance to bowl more frames in competition than they would have otherwise. 

“Everyone’s going to get playing time instead of having to sit on the bench for a number of frames,” said coach Mike Bourcier. “As long as no one’s sick, that’s going to be our thing, but the kids are going to get to play more.”

    In this Feb. 25, 2024 file photo, Rhinelander’s Dominic Hakala bowls during the Wisconsin High School Bowling Club D9 Singles competition at Nick’s Hodag Lanes in Rhinelander. Hakala is one of four returning bowlers for the Rhinelander high school boys’ club bowling team this winter. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

The Hodag boys return a trio of juniors off of last year’s squad, which went 5-5 in D9 Division 1 boys’ play — Dominic Hakala, Blake Klingen and Jackson Fuss. The team also brings back a fourth bowler will plenty of experience in senior Alex Hall, who missed the 2023-24 season due to a wrist injury. 

“Dom’s been getting better. Blake is there. Jackson, I’ve seen him improve from last year to this year,” Bourcier said. “Then Alex is back and is still pretty solid. I’ve got three guys that have been there for a number of years that are still solid.”

In addition to Alsager, the program brings in a trio of freshmen — Logan Campbell, Silas Johnson and Jaxton Tatrow. Campbell and Johnson bowled with the Rhinelander middle school squad last year while Tatrow is in his first year of competitive bowling. 

Because Rhinelander will be a standalone varsity program this year, the team will drop down to Division 2 for the upcoming season. However, Bourcier cautioned just because the Hodags will be facing teams with lower enrollments doesn’t mean the competition will be any easier.

“Antigo’s still got its strong teams, you still’ve got Amherst, a lot of schools that are still solid,” He said. “D2’s probably stronger than D1, truthfully. My goal for the kids is just to instill in them to hit their marks. Throwing strikes is great, but make your marks and anything can happen.”

Senior Johanna Dellenbach leads a list of five returning bowlers on the girls’ side of the program. She narrowly missed qualifying for the WiHSBC state singles tournament last year, finishing fifth in D9 with a .7083 fill percentage. That was good enough, however, to get her on the squad for the state All-Star Challenge, which District 9 won last March.

“Johanna has some goals of her own this year. She wants to make it to state. She wants to get back to the all-star team again,” said coach Dellenbach, Johanna’s father.

Elcho’s Addison Habeck and Rhinelander’s Katrina Roof join Johanna Dellenbach as the three seniors for the Hodag girls. Sophomores Oliver Doppke and Alyssa Habeck also return from last year’s squad while the team adds three new bowlers this year — sophomore Zeva Barret, sophomore Joselyn Sorenson and freshman Alexia Corey-Luse. 

“I feel like we’re a little bit ahead this year,” coach Dellenbach said. “Especially for the girls, this will be our third year, same group minus one girl from last year. I think we’re a little bit ahead this year. All the kids are coming along and are improving already.”

The Hodag girls are trying to improve in the team standings after an 0-10 campaign in 2023-24.

“Last year we were close on a number of matches. I’d like to at least pull out a few of those this year,” coach Dellenbach said. “We went into a few, going into that ninth game tied 4-4. It would be nice to squeak some of those out this year and get a match win for the girls. It’s something we haven’t had the last two years. I think the girls really need that this year. If we can get it early, that would be nice.”

The middle school program returns state qualifier Eli Miller, an eighth-grader from Jakes Williams Middle School alone with eight grader Brighton Walkowski and seventh graders Natalie Dellenbach and Charlotte Preuss. Fifth grader Logan Johnson rounds out the squad.

The high school squads will bowl 10 matches over five rounds in District 9 play, with the top teams in the standings advancing to the WiHSBC state tournament which will take place March 7-9 at Revs Bowl Bar & Grill in Oshkosh and Rolling Thunder Lanes in Neenah. 

High school matches will take place Nov. 3, Nov. 17, Dec. 15, Jan. 12 and Feb. 2, all at Dale’s Weston Lanes with the exception of Feb. 2, which will take place at 5-Star Lanes in Plover. The D9 JV tournament will be held Feb. 23 at Island City Lanes in Minocqua and the D9 singles tournament will take place Feb. 28-March 2 at North Star Lanes in Antigo. 

The middle schoolers will bowl single matches on each of the high school dates, and a doubleheader March 16 in Antigo to complete their seven-round schedule. The middle school state meet with take place May 3 in Appleton.

In another change entering the 2024-25 season, there will be a new metric used to determine which individuals qualify for the singles portion of the WiHSBC tournament. Up until this year a simple fill percentage ratio was used, which calculated the number of fills (strikes or spares) a bowler had over the total number of frames they bowled. That has be replaced by a metric that puts a greater emphasis on strike rate. 

“It’s supposed to give the bowlers that are more consistent, that can strike, it will give them an advantage,” Bourcier said. “It’s going to be interesting. It’s going to level some of the players.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].