The bowling alley was packed
with bowlers across the city as
Christopher Agnuyole sat cheering
his teammates, chanting out their
names, while his team competed in
their playoff matches.
“I would say bowling is 10
percent athleticism and 90 percent

mental. Just keeping your head clear
and not overthinking it is a clear
part of bowling,” said Agnuyole, Div.
967. “We had higher team morale.
We were more together, you can feel
it. The team meshed better.”
This season, both Boys and Girls
Bowling qualified for city as well as
state playoffs.
Most sports would crown the

team with the most games won as
the champion, but for the bowling

playoff matches, the champion is de-
cided by the team that knocks down

the most pins.
During these playoff matches,
each team plays four games in
head-to-head competition, with five
players each.
Augustus Ordinario, Div. 962,

one of the five players on Lane’s
city tournament lineup, has been
bowling for a good portion of his
life with his family, and points to
Lane’s team chemistry as one of the
biggest factors in deciding his team’s
performance.
“It’s a team sport, so if I mess
up, I know that my team will pick
me up, and if they mess up I’ll pick
them up,” Ordinario said.
After not qualifying for city
playoffs last season, the boys placed
ninth in city this season.
The boys city championship
tournament was played at Waveland
Bowl on Jan. 14 and featured a
variety of schools from around the
city that qualified for the playoff,
including Morgan Park, Taft, and
Walter Payton.
Daniel Esguerra, Div. 259, who
began his bowling career almost two
years ago, acknowledged how big of
an impact qualifying for the playoffs
was for the students on the team.
“The mindset going into this
was to have fun because we have
six seniors, and only four returning
players, so we were out there to have
fun,” Esguerra said. “We were kind
of confident — we were just trying

our best, and we all just tried relax-
ing because it was very intimidating

at first.”
Esguerra, who played a vital part
of the team’s playoff run, was also
able to make a splash individually as
he qualified to compete at the state
regional competition against other

individual bowlers across the city.
Esguerra praises his teammates as
one of the best motivators for him
playing as well as he did this season.

“The team morale is a really essen-
tial part of this game,” Esguerra said.

”If the team is down, then I’m going
to be down, so I have to help them
out too.”
Girls Bowling placed third in
city championships, which also took
place at Waveland Bowl, after being

disqualified from last year’s city play-
off competition for arriving late.

Alyssa Matias, Div. 956, joined
the team her junior year, and praised
the team for their improvement from
last season.

“It was the best we ever per-
formed,” Matias said, when asked

about the team’s performance during
the city championship matches.
The Girls team also placed 7th
in sectionals after advancing past
the state regional round of playoffs
at Suburbanite Bowl in Westmont,
Illinois.
Matias said that working as a
team has been a key to their recent
performance.
“Teamwork is crucial because the
team score is the most important
score,” Matias said.
“When your teammate is not
doing their best, it’s so important for
us to pick each other up, do our best
to make up for them and help them
out.”