As a sophomore, Everett’s Candice Goldfinch placed second at the 3A/2A state high school girls bowling championships, finishing just four pins behind the winner.
She also came close to an individual title in her other two state appearances — finishing eighth as a freshman and fifth as a junior — but coming up a mere four pins short as a sophomore is something she calls “a huge motivator.”
This year, Goldfinch leads the Seagulls into the state tournament with a chance to cap off her high school career with not only a singles championship, but also a team state title. The two-day 2A/3A state tournament begins at 10 a.m. Friday at Narrows Plaza Bowl in University Place.
With a 202 average, a high game of 268, and a high series of 724 this season, Goldfinch is one of the favorites, and so is her team. The Seagulls enter the event with a 14-0 record. Each match consisted of three games, and the Seagulls earned sweeps in 12 of them, dropping just two games the entire season.
“She’s got a real good shot,” Cascade head coach Ron Hicks said of Goldfinch’s chances of winning the state championship. “She could end up being a singles champion and her team could end up being state champions this year. There is enough strength and she’s got enough people on her team to help her get there. I think they have a very good chance of doing that — winning the state championship.”
Hicks doesn’t coach Goldfinch’s high school team, but he’s quite familiar with her. He used to bowl with her father and has known her since she was born. Goldfinch, who started bowling as a 4-year-old, is a special talent who is willing to put in the effort to be great, Hicks said.
“You have to be very determined because bowling, like golf, can be very frustrating,” Hicks said.
It isn’t just skill that makes a great bowler. Equally important is knowing how to make adjustments. Different oil patterns on the lanes cause the ball to do different things, and as the oil breaks down, bowlers have to know how to adjust their shots so the ball still goes where they intend it to go.”
First-year Everett head coach Marji Bovey said that is one of Goldfinch’s strengths.
“Candice puts a lot of effort into her game — understanding what the lanes look like and being able to read the lanes and making adjustments based off of how her ball is reacting to the conditions of the lane on any given day,” Bovey said. “As you go from house to house, lane conditions are different because they all have different patterns.”
That hasn’t always been the strength of Goldfinch’s game. Hicks said her ability to make the right adjustments has developed over time. But the fact that it came at all is a huge asset for her. Hicks said even seasoned bowlers struggle in that area.
“That’s probably the biggest challenge for any young bowler is to learn how to read the lanes and make the adjustments as the lanes change,” he said.
Goldfinch has rolled a pair of 700 series this season, something Hicks said he can’t remember being done by a local high school bowler in more than a decade.
It isn’t just Goldfinch’s scores that are impressive. Her leadership has played a key role in the team’s success this season, Bovey said.
“Even though those scores stand out, she does a really good job of making sure everyone on the team is being supported and uplifted in their own individual game,” Bovey said. “She’s a great team player. She wants to make sure that everyone is going to be successful even though she happens to be bowling fabulous.
“Candice is like having a player-coach on the team,” Bovey added. “She watches everybody and she helps them make adjustments on the fly during matches and during practice. Just to have that extra input of knowledge on our team has really helped to keep us going this season.”
At practice and in matches, Goldfinch and her teammates are always cheering for each other — even when things aren’t going so well. That supportive atmosphere has been one of the secrets to the Seagulls’ success.
“We’ve had to work on team building and realizing everyone is going to have their bad games and not everyone can shoot 200 every game,” Goldfinch said. “When someone is having a bad game, we need to support them.”
Goldfinch recently was accepted to Midland University in Nebraska — which offers women’s bowling as one of its 27 varsity sports — but she’s yet to make her final decision as to where she will attend college. Wherever she goes, she said she would like to continue her bowling career.
But first she would like to add “state bowling champion” to her resume. In order to do that, she’ll likely need to average around 215 this weekend.
Goldfinch knows what scores she needs to shoot, but said her best chance to win is to not let that pressure get to her.
“I don’t really think about the scores,” she said. “I think about the ball that I’m throwing and how I can improve the ball that I’m throwing.”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
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