A trio of teenage bowlers who have spent Saturdays honing their talents in the youth league at Triangle Bowl in Longview became the latest to earn scholarships to bowl collegiately this year when they put pen to paper on Saturday.
And all three are headed to the same bowling program.
Mahalia Perkins, Kailee Wilcox and Savannah Hawkins each signed their Letter of Intent to join Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma. SNU is a Division II school that competes in the Great American Conference.
The youth bowling talent in Cowlitz and Lewis counties continues to be mined by collegiate bowling programs. The signings of Perkins, Wilcox and Hawkins on Saturday brought the total to seven who have received college scholarships with ties to Triangle Bowl.
Perkins, a Mark Morris senior, has been bowling competitively since her freshman year of high school. She capped her senior season with the Monarchs two months ago with a 14th place finish at the 2A State tournament. Though Perkins religiously worked at her improvement, taking bowling to the collegiate level seemed like an outlandish possibility.
“I’m pretty excited,” Perkins admitted. “I never thought that I would go to the collegiate level for bowling. I started (my) freshman year three years ago and I just never thought that I would make it this far. I guess if you put the work into it in practice you will (be rewarded).”
Perkins recently made the trip to Bethany, Oklahoma to tour the private university. She met with coach Mark Jeffrys and toured the new bowling facility. Southern Nazarene’s bowling program is in its first season. The fact that the program is in its infancy will give the three girls (along with two additional state of Washington signings) every opportunity to compete at the varsity level from Day 1. That experience will be immeasurable for all three.
Hawkins, a senior at W.F. West in Chehalis, was recruited to bowling by her friend and the 2A State champion Piper Chalmers after she tore her ACL in basketball as a freshman. Hawkins realized that as much as she loved the sport of basketball, perhaps there was a better, less physically demanding sport she could pursue that would take her to college on an athletic scholarship. It worked out.
“It’s really an individual sport,” said Hawkins who recently placed 13th in the 2A State tournament. “It’s been nice just having this one sport that is really all on me and I can practice as hard as I want (knowing) my outcome is going to be (a result) of how much I practice.”
On top of having a spot on the new Crimson Storm bowling team, Hawkins will have the opportunity to walk on to the fastpitch softball team.
“It’s been a really cool experience for me,” Hawkins added. “It’s an awesome school. I really loved the campus when I did a virtual tour with them.”
Wilcox, a recent graduate of Evergreen High School in Vancouver, has spent the last nine months bowling tournaments every weekend all around the region while searching for a collegiate bowling program that would have her.
“Trying to find a college for bowling has been super troublesome for me. I was actually signed to a college last year and the coach ended up leaving so I decommitted and followed him to his new school. Then when I went to apply, I was told that they were ending their bowling program,” Wilcox relayed.
Recently she learned about SNU, was introduced to coach Jeffrys and shortly thereafter the offer came. Now Wilcox will head south to a new state to join a new team with a pair of old acquaintances by her side.
“I’m so excited. I graduated last year and college bowling has been a dream of mine since I was eight (years old),” acknowledged Wilcox. “I’m excited that I get to meet new people and go through this journey with people that I also know. It is nerve wracking because it is a new state, it’s somewhere I’ve never been, but I think the excitement is something that makes up for that.”
