T'Quanna Cole throws at the pins when her Meridian bowling team and Pearl's bowling team faced off in Meridian on Thursday.

Meridian High School’s bowling teams faced off against Pearl on Thursday in a mid-season home match. Meridian’s A and B boys squads combined to edge out Pearl with a pin count of 2,296 to 2,159, but Meridian’s girls squads put up a pin count of 1,585, which was not good enough to top Pearl’s score of 1,625.

Jabralen McClendon, the only senior on either of Meridian’s teams, is a veteran Wildcat that has bowled since Meridian started a bowling team in 2020 after his brother helped him learn how to bowl. Meridian coach Kaleigh Covington said he is not only an outstanding bowler, but also a leader that helps tremendously with the boys and girls teams.

“He’s been bowling since his ninth grade year, and he has always been high up,” Covington said. “He helps our guys. He teaches them things that he knows that some of these younger guys have never done before. He’s a big aspect. We’re going to lose somebody big next year.”

Covington said she believes her boys team has performed well this season, and she expects them to do well in the playoffs. McClendon said the Wildcats need to work on teamwork, fixing early-season mistakes, and getting to practice on time to maximize their practice time in order to prepare for the postseason.

“The boys season, it’s going pretty good right now, but I feel like we can do better than what we’re doing,” McClendon said. “I feel like the bowling team should bring in a trophy.”

Kamaya Dunn, a junior on Meridian’s girls team who has bowled for two years, said she originally came out to bowl because it seemed like an extra-fun extracurricular activity. She said her goal is for her team to perform well at regionals this season.

Covington said the girls team is doing pretty well for a young and inexperienced squad. She said most of her bowlers on the girls team are in their first year of competitive bowling.

“We’re struggling, but we are in the 100’s with our scores, so that’s a plus,” Covington said. “We’re out of double digits and in triple digits, but yes, that’s definitely our downfall, them being younger. They haven’t had that many years of experience. This is their first year, their first time to ever bowl in a competitive setting other than with their families.”

Covington wants to see her teams win because wins are exciting for her bowlers, but at the end of the day, she just wants them all to have fun and feel like they are a part of something. She said all there is to do to prepare for the playoffs is to practice harder and get better.

“We definitely need to focus more on knocking the pins down and picking up that spare rather than hitting a gutter ball or letting split pins get us, because that’s our biggest thing right now,” Covington said. “We have too many dashes in our scorecards.”