On Saturday, Jan. 12, the boys and girls bowling teams took the title of Baker Tournament Champions.

After bowling 12 Baker games, where five bowlers all bowl one game, at Camelot Lanes in Portage, both teams qualified first going into the bracket.

“I knew that we were top seed because I wasn’t seeing any high scores at all from teams during qualifying. Nobody put up high scores like we did,” Allison Sellers (12) said.

In order to get to the final, the girls had to beat conference rivals Crown Point and Merrillville. In the championship match, the girls rolled against Boone Grove in a best-two-of-three game format to determine the winner. After winning the first game and losing the second game, the girls found the energy to pull out a win over Boone Grove 175-161.

“Our team was trying to cheer as much as we could because we knew we could get into the other team’s heads and intimidate them,” Kelly Belzeski (11) said.

To get through the stepladder, the boys team went up against a “mixed” team of bowlers from Portage and other various schools . In the championship match, the boys defeated Hobart, winning the last game with a low score of 163-143.

“I’d say the lane conditions got pretty bad. The lanes got torn up with the oil lessening. Both teams struggled,” Andrew Schmied (10) said.

The boys and girls, both Westlake Conference Champions, will take on the same field in the Region Rumble at City Lanes in Michigan City this Saturday, Jan. 19.