When junior Rose Dotson decided to try out for the 2018-2019 bowling team at McCallum High School, the big question wasn’t whether or not she would make the team but rather whether there would be a team at all.

With a boys program well-established and competing well, the bowling program tried and failed to muster a girls team the year before.

Thankfully for Dotson, four other girls also decided to join to bowling team last fall and as a result, McCallum was able to form its first all-girls bowling team.

“I’m really happy that this is McCallum’s first girls bowling team,” Dotson said. “I was originally told that I wasn’t going to be able to bowl unless other girls would show up, or I was going to be stuck on the JV boys team, but since other girls showed up, now I have other girls to bowl with.”

Dotson first got her experience of bowling at the age of 5 when her dad put her in a father-daughter league, but as she got older and found other pursuits, she had to leave the lanes behind.

“She got pretty good at bowling and had to quit later on,” Dotson’s mom Luisa said. “She got too busy with her after school activities.”

Dotson’s whole family enjoys bowling. Her dad, Daren was really into bowling, and it was something that her grandfather, Gary had taught him to do. When he realized Rose liked it, it made him so happy that this tradition was still going on in their family.

“I think there are a select few who can take a liking into bowling and with a proper amount of practice it’s very invigorating and the feeling of getting a strike is very fulfilling,” Dotson said. “I think those who discover their little successes like that really get better at the sport, and I think that could be said for a lot of people on the McCallum bowling team.”

Rose has been wanting to bowl competitively for some time, and now that she quit track and cross country, she was able to do something that she used to love as a child.

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“I’ve been doing it for so long, but I have learned that bowling is not a key skill for many people,” Rose Dotson said. “Bowling can be very difficult because there is a lot more technique going on. There’s a lot of analyzing where you stand, and you have to know how you personally release a ball, you need to know how to hold a ball, how to throw it, aim, how to curve the ball, and how all individual balls work.”

After defeating McCallum beat Anderson 15-2 on Friday night, Dotson gained one place in district ranking by individual average. Dotson ranks sixth in the THSBC Austin Capital district with an average of 104 pins. As a team, the Knights are 5-1 on the year including 4-0 in district play.