OTTUMWA —
The Ottumwa girls bowling team will welcome a talented new addition to its roster this season in 14-year-old Bailey Palmer.
Palmer, who has been bowling since she was five years old, recently took second out of 15 bowlers at the Teen Masters Bowling Championship in Cleveland, Ohio. Her second-place finish netted her $1,000 in scholarship money — the first place finisher received $3,000.
The Tennis Masters event ran from July 8 to July 12. Teen Masters provides a venue for talented young bowlers to showcase their talents.
The event features bowlers from two age groups: 14 and under and 14 to 18. The bowlers are split according to gender within their particular age group. For example, 14 and under girls compete against each other and 14 and under boys compete against each other.
Not being one who suffers from a lack of confidence, Palmer said she planned to win the championship.
“Her older brother Cody said he wouldn’t go unless she was going to win,” Bailey’s mother, Lori Palmer, said. “She tried, she gave it her all.”
Teen Masters poses a greater challenge than your everyday, run-of-the-mill bowling alley because the oil patterns used on the lanes makes the margin for error substantially smaller.
“Basically they bowled on oil patterns you would see your pro bowlers bowl on called a sports shot,” Lori Palmer said.
The sports shot is quite a bit more difficult than the house shot, which are the lanes your average Joe would use at the local bowling alley.
“When you go to a sports shot you’re expected to drop 15 to 20 pins automatically,” Bailey’s dad Ted Palmer said.
“You’re lucky if you have three inches of an area to hit and with a house shot you could have six, seven, eight inches to hit.”
Bailey Palmer said she averaged around a 160 in the 26 games she played at the Teen Masters. Because of the difficult nature of the bowling championship, this score was 30 pins below her usual 190 average at Champion Bowl.
Bailey Palmer qualified for Tennis Masters by winning a qualifier in Muscatine in February. Muscatine represented the first time she had to roll a sport shot instead of a house shot, Lori Palmer said.
Though Palmer started bowling at a young age, she didn’t bowl competitively until this year when she competed in Greater Iowa Scholarship Bowling Tournaments. In fact, Ted Palmer said his daughter didn’t get too serious about the sport until two years ago. Before that it was more of a go out Saturday with friends sort of thing.
Today, however, Bailey is not lacking in seriousness or ambition. She said her goal is for the Bulldog girls bowling team to repeat as Class 2A state champions this season — Ottumwa won their sixth overall title by 316 pins with a score of 3,101. And her goals aren’t confined to just this year, either. Palmer said she her long-term goal is for the Bulldogs to win the state title all four years of her high school career.
Sports
July 26, 2012
Ottumwa native takes second in youth bowling Championship
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