St. James Academy’s Alanna Dierking finishes sixth in Kansas 5-1A bowling tournament
Sometimes St. James Academy junior Alanna Dierking can become too dialed in when bowling.
Dierking becomes so locked into her surroundings that how she is currently stacking up with the competition sometimes overloads her.
In an environment like Northrock Lanes in Wichita in the Class 5-1A tournament, Dierking had to wrestle with her emotions constantly with so many other bowlers and screaming fans around her.
But Dierking controlled her emotions and pieced together a 635-pin series on Thursday morning. In her third consecutive appearance at state, Dierking placed sixth, her best finish yet.
“It’s very hard because you see everyone doing well and bowling strikes and you start to compare yourself to them,” Dierking said. “You can’t do that because you’ll just fall apart. So I just kept my focus and didn’t worry what others were doing.”
Adversity struck early on, as Dierking had trouble picking up spares in a first game where she shot 171 and stood in 24th place.
This is where Dierking’s maturity rose to the occasion, as the junior stayed calm and started the next game rolling strikes. One after another, Dierking closed frames until she was right back in the mix with a 241.
“When you get to state, it’s about 80 percent mental,” St. James coach Terry Kopp said. “So I told (Dierking) even if you throw a bad ball, come back with a smile and you’ll be better off. And that’s what she did. She didn’t get worked up and was a little more relaxed.”
After closing with a 223 in her third game, Dierking ascended all the way to sixth place. After finishing 22nd as a sophomore and 10th as a freshman, Dierking said Thursday inspired her to be even better as a senior.
“I only want to get better from here,” Dierking said. “Top five is the goal next year now.”
Lansing just short of trophy
The Lansing boys have had an interesting history with the third-place trophy at state. They won third in 2012 after a tiebreaker, then fell one pin short of third in 2013, and on Thursday, Lansing finished with a team score of 2,545 pins — five short of Great Bend for third place.
Senior John Bredehoeft strung together three games of at least 217 to finish with a 690 series for fifth overall. Curtis Vanderstaay finished with a 643 series and was 14th.
“We had a good team this year that we felt could come down and compete well,” Lansing coach Martha Bredehoeft said. “We had a good day, just not quite good enough.”
Piper had a pair of teammates with Top-10 performances in Justin Johnson (eighth at 658) and Matthew Romero (ninth at 656). Leavenworth also placed Jeremy Crowder (17th at 632) and Billy O’Donnell (19th at 625).
In the girls’ competition, Lansing’s Lacey Angello (ninth at 589) and Sumner’s Nouksapha Phomviuvanh (11th at 569) were the other area medalists.
This story was originally published March 5, 2015 at 6:20 PM with the headline "St. James Academy’s Alanna Dierking finishes sixth in Kansas 5-1A bowling tournament."