New Bremen’s Caden Wente rolled a 472 series Saturday (247, 225) at McBo’s, in Versailles. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
New Bremen’s junior, Caden Wente, set a new personal high on Saturday to highlight MAC league bowling at McBo’s, in Versailles.
Versailles, OH – Caden Wente (pronounced Win-tay) couldn’t stop smiling.
And afterwards, the whole time he talked about his career-high 472 two-game series (247, 225) in individual bowling Saturday at McBo’s Bowling Center, in Versailles…he couldn’t stop smiling.
“This was by best day ever, the best I’ve ever bowled,” he said. “I’ve been averaging about 195, and today was the best I’ve done in individual bowling, ever.”
Taken for what it was, his two-game series works to an average of 236, of course, and those two games pushed his cumulative average for the season from 195 to 201.5.
“I bowled two great games today, our team won (over St. Henry, 2878 to 2733), so I’m pretty happy,” he explained. “My ball was moving today, I was throwing strikes, pickin’ up my spares…that’s it.”
Whether you’re throwing strikes with a baseball, a bowling ball, shooting a basketball, or hitting a golf ball…there is a ‘zone’ that athletes seek, whereby it just feels like every time you try to do it…you do it perfectly. It’s called ‘being in the zone’, it’s hard to explain, and yet Caden Wente did his best to try.
“It’s kind of hard to explain, but you just try to duplicate your best shot every time you throw the ball.”
Muscle memory?
“Yeah, a hundred percent muscle memory,” he adds. “You try to find that place where you practice, the curve on the ball, hitting your spots, just that feeling that you’re doing it 100% right. That’s what it felt like for me today.”
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Wente’s 472 was the highest two-game total of the day, and bested Minster’s Xavier Kitzmiller’s 452 (245, 207) by just 20 pins. But given the nature of bowling, 20 pins might as well be 200 if that’s the difference between winning and losing. It takes luck to be a winning bowler, and Wente’s two games included some 7 and 10 pins off pocket hits that afforded him no luck at all. For the lack of just two of those 10 pins, his score might well have been 492, or even higher.
“But I know when I throw it, pretty much, if it’s going to be a strike,” he adds. Such is the instinct, the feel, ‘the zone’ that comes with bowling.
He hasn’t bowled that long. There hasn’t been enough time…he’s barely seventeen. But he counts as his influences in bowling former teammate Maverick Nelson, and Nelson’s dad, Tom.
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“Yeah, Maverick and his dad. His dad taught me a lot about bowling in junior high,” says Wente. “He’s helped me get to where I am today. I’m really not good at any of the other sports, so when I started bowling he helped me become good at it. My teammates motivate me, push me, to have the best average on the team. That helps me a lot now, and teammates are really fun to be around. I think a lot of teams might take it really serious, but with us I think it’s good that we laugh and have fun.”
His favorite high school subject…is math. Pi r squared. And Wente says his plans are to attend a college when he graduates next year…he just doesn’t know which one.
And would he try to bowl? After all, bowling, as a college sport, has become quite lucrative towards paying for tuition and books. And he could, having improved his average in a year’s time from 170 (last year), to 201.5 following Saturday’s scores.
“I’ve been thinking about a career in teaching,” he says, planning for his future. “I’d like to teach math. And if they had a bowling team at college I’d definitely try out.”
The incentive, of course, is strong at the present. He will remember Saturday for being the best ‘bowling’ day of his life…
Or even, the best day ever!
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