One might imagine that a district champion in anything would live and breathe nothing but his or her sport. But junior Bethany Symonds, who bowled her way to the District title on Jan. 28 and then went on to place third at the State meet (leading her team to second) on Feb. 8, doesn’t seem to have any trouble finding other ways to stay busy.

Bethany represents the Wenatchee High School Future Farmers of America (FFA) as the vice president, and runs a feeding business at Appleatchee.

“During the bowling season I spend so much time bowling because [I have] the practices, and then immediately after practices I go up to the barn, Appleatchee, where I have a feeding business. So I go up there and I feed and clean everyone. It’s really hard during the bowling season cause I don’t always have enough time to ride, and so it’s kind of a win-lose situation because I love bowling and I’m really happy that I’m bowling, but at the same time I don’t have as much time for my horses, and that is hard for me. It’s nice that bowling’s only three months out of the year.”

Bethany picked up bowling her freshman year because her mom, English teacher Mary Symonds, told her she had to play a sport and she didn’t like running, and has seen incredible improvement since. Her average went from a 134 freshman year to a 191 this year. Her best is a 277 (a 300 is a perfect game.) She credits Coach Jay Young with her improvement.

“He understands everything about bowling. And so, we’ll bowl, and he’ll just immediately be like, ‘Oh you need to move to the right a little bit and throw your ball a little harder and it’ll work for you,’ and then we do it and it works every time and we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh how did you know that?’”

While almost all people have been bowling before, most don’t understand how the competitive game works.

“Probably the major [misconception] is that people don’t agree that it’s a sport,” said Bethany. “They think that just cause we don’t run it’s not a sport. Most people just really don’t understand it, period.”

Even though bowling doesn’t require rigorous conditioning and strength training like other sports, it has other challenges (besides the obvious challenge of getting a ball to knock over 10 pins at once).

“The hardest part is just going to the different out-of-town places ‘cause they’re so different from what we’re used to bowling here. They use oil on the lanes, and so the oil pattern is different at every lane that you go to. So it changes the way you have to throw the ball, and the way it reacts, and everything,” Bethany said. “Last year Mr. Young had our lanes put down the oil pattern that would be at State before we went there so we could have a little bit of practice before we went there, but I mean otherwise, there’s really no way that you can prepare for it, just kinda change when you get there.”

Coach Young has only good things to say about his top bowler.

“Bethany’s a competitor. She doesn’t like to lose,” Young said. “I don’t think she’s missed a single practice this year.If I had to run through a wall, I would want her next to me.Seriously. She’s a competitor.”

At the District match, Symonds came from behind to win by one pin, and according to her mother, her calm competitiveness was crucial for the win.

“Bethany’s calm on the outside. If you looked at her competing, she has a total game face,” Mary said. “[At Districts] the deal is that only the number one team can go, and the top two individuals. And she was in third, and the team wasn’t winning. At that time I was totally sick to my stomach. And then I noticed her. She had the same game face, and she just powered through. It was pretty intense.”