STARKVILLE — Jim Philamlee was worried about his girls bowling team entering the season.
The Starkville High School coach had just one senior, Cori Schmidt, and she transferred in from Georgia and didn’t bowl with the team last year. His team was mainly made up of sophomores and his biggest concern was experience.
“I didn’t have but one senior,” Philamlee said. “The rest of them were 10th grade or down. Experience makes a big difference.”
But much to Philamlee’s surprise, his girls began to get better and better with each week and after winning the Mississippi High School Activities Association Division II North Regional championship, he felt good about what was going to happen the following week. The Lady Yellow Jackets kept the momentum going and won the Division II State championship, the first in school history. Division II consists of Class 4A, 5A and 6A.
One of those sophomores, Sierra McKinley, earned All-State honors after bowling a total score of 726 in four games in the championship round.
Philamlee said McKinley began to gain confidence as the season progressed, and it showed down the stretch as she became the main focal point of the Lady Jacket team.
McKinley said practice made her better, but there was a driving force behind the team this season.
“We felt like that we needed to step up because we lost two of our best bowlers last year to graduation,” McKinley said. “We felt like we needed to step up and do better.
“We wanted to make history because it was the first championship. We felt like we needed to come together and get it.”
The sophomores bowled as freshmen for the varsity team and Philamlee felt like that made a big difference as the season wore on.
Even though Schmidt had some experience coming in, she wasn’t with the team long enough to help them progress according to Philamlee. But Schmidt wanted to do what she could.
Schmidt, who admitted she had confidence about her own game coming in, was surprised with how well the younger players progressed as he season went on.
“I think a lot of them learned to focus more on their game instead of their talking,” Schmidt said. “Whenever I went in there, I thought, ‘Maybe I can come in and be the awesome player on the team.’ But they kind of surprised me.”
Schmidt said she was happy that McKinley was bowling some of her best games in the state championship and felt like the sophomore really carried the team to the title.
After winning the regional title with the highest score of any team in the three regions in the state, the team felt like a state championship was obtainable.
Philamlee said it was exactly the confidence booster his young team needed.
“When they won the regional that was a shot in the arm,” Philamlee said. “That let them know that they could. When we started the state championship, in the first game they went in front and stayed there.”
Along with being inexperienced, the Lady Jackets had to practice at a new facility after Bulldog Lanes in Starkville was shut down. Philamlee said both his girls and boys team had to make the trek to Columbus and practice at GT Lanes.
“It was taxing to go to Columbus,” Philamlee said. “We had to get a bus twice a week and then we had to haul equipment. The practice over there was very taxing, but we did it.”
Inexperience won’t be an excuse for Starkville and Philamlee next season, but he feels good about his team moving forward, especially with all the lessons they learned this season.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this is not the learning that will really help us down the road,” Philamlee said. “It’s hard to beat the learning of winning, it’s very hard to do that.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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