Strike!

Today's practice frustrates Holmes. The scrimmage scores are low, and he faults his players for failing to make the necessary adjustments — changing balls, taking aim from a different board. He tells his team simply, "Find something to make it work."

Later, the bowlers perform a drill in which they must bowl a strike or a spare across four lanes. They return to Lane 1 if they leave open a frame.

The drill takes longer to complete than Holmes thinks it should. "We're just spinning our wheels here," he says.

Caldwell and junior Jamie Mitchell, two starters, finish last. When they finally complete the circuit, Holmes collects the team and asks which lanes were oily and which were dry. Competitive bowlers stew on the question of lane oil. On a "wet" lane, the ball will carry longer before it begins to hook. Oil placement is crucial. Most bowling alleys apply it in such a way that recreational players can easily find the pocket. It's a marketing tool. Better scores mean happier customers.

Serious bowlers compete on less forgiving surfaces, and they resent that strike-friendly lanes have cheapened scoring. Holmes keeps copies of a chart showing that a score of 181 on the conditions his players face is like a 200 at the local AMF.

Today's practice ends with the Jennies missing the pocket on purpose so that they can work on spares. Bowling is not the most physically demanding sport, but extended play is hell on hands. Teams pack Super Glue and Nu Skin in tackle boxes to treat thumbs and fingers damaged when the bowling ball releases and makes that thwok sound.

"My hand hurts, Ron," Gerding says.

"We're all in pain," junior Alyssa Surges says, echoing her teammate.

The players put on their sweats and trudge over to the multipurpose building for a cardio workout. Their physiques may not be uniformly sleek, but Central Missouri bowlers are like any other Division II student athletes, balancing team demands with class, homework and social lives. Their status is partly due to Title IX, the 1972 federal law that ensures equality of opportunity in education. Women's bowling helps athletic departments even out their numbers. (Including bowling, Central Missouri offers eight sports for women — the same number offered for the men.)

Yet in some ways, today's best women bowlers are less fortunate than those who learned the game before gender equity.

Judy Soutar turned professional at age 16. She signed a contract with the Brunswick ball manufacturer before she graduated from Paseo High School in 1962.

Soutar started bowling when she was 4. Her parents owned the Country Club Bowl at 71st Street and McGee. Every day after school, she bowled for a couple of hours before dinner — and she developed into an expert spare shooter. On her father's instructions, the pin boys set up common second shots (like the 2-4-5) for her to master. "He wouldn't let me just bowl," Soutar says.

Bowling was extremely popular when Soutar turned pro. Alleys were packed with league players wearing matching shirts.

At Country Club Bowl, Soutar recalls, "You couldn't get into a league unless someone quit or passed away."

The men's tour was on the verge of entering into its first contract with the ABC television network. In 1964, bowler Don Carter joined up with Ebonite to become the first pro athlete with a million-dollar endorsement deal.

Soutar flourished with the sport. Sportswriters named her bowler of the year twice in the 1970s. She spent 250 days a year on the road, competing and making appearances.

"If I didn't cash in at a tournament, I was still going to get a paycheck from Brunswick," Soutar says. In 1975, she bowled at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for a chance to win $50,000. (She lost in the semifinals of the winner-take-all event.)

Soutar and her second husband, professional bowler Dave Soutar, lived in Grandview and, later, Leawood. When she and Dave traveled, her mother watched the kids — each brought two children into the marriage. Soutar says she and her husband never seemed to have an off year at the same time, making the time they spent apart from each other and their kids more tolerable. "We were lucky in that respect," says Soutar, who now lives in Bradenton, Florida.

Soutar retired from competitive bowling in 1990, just as the professional game was beginning to wane. PWBA events that had attracted 150 entrants were doing well to get 80 by the time Soutar made her exit. ABC slashed the amount it paid for the rights to broadcast the men's tour before parting ways with the circuit in 1997.

A trio of former Microsoft executives purchased the flagging men's tour in 2000, and today, with a title sponsor (Denny's) and a television home (ESPN), the circuit enjoys a measure of health.

No tech millionaires came to the women's rescue. On August 11, 2003, the PWBA announced that its fall swing was canceled for lack of operating funds.

"It was devastating," says Kelly Kulick, the PWBA's rookie of the year in 2001. "All of a sudden, without warning, it just stopped — dead-ended," she tells The Pitch from her home in Union, New Jersey.