Strike!

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.

After bowling at Morehead State — Kulick's the one who rolled the strike that denied Central Missouri that 1998 intercollegiate championship — Kulick looked forward to a long and prosperous career as a pro. She had the skills and she liked life on the road. "I don't mind doing laundry in the laundromat," she says.

With no place to showcase her talents, Kulick gave lessons, helped in the office of her father's auto-body shop and practiced. Then something improbable happened. In 2006, she outbowled 133 men (and two women) over five grueling days to win a seasonlong berth on the Professional Bowlers Association Tour.

But Kulick's 2006-07 season didn't go as well as she'd hoped. Her best finish on the tour was 17th place. Still, just making the tour was a great achievement, one that Kulick didn't appreciate until the season ended. "I didn't fail," she says. "But it drives me more to go back out there and try it again."

Though the PWBA remains defunct, opportunities to bowl for cash still exist. The U.S. Bowling Congress sponsors an open championship and a women's tournament — the USBC Queens, which Kulick won in 2007, taking home a $30,000 prize. Last fall, women's tournaments ran concurrently at four Denny's PBA Tour stops; top prize was $10,000 each week.

Kulick, who is 30, wants to keep bowling. "I still feel like there's more ahead of me," she says.

But she's disappointed and a little surprised that the PWBA hasn't made a comeback. "Our ratings were even better than NHL hockey," she says.

A few hours a week, Mission Bowl prohibits smoking and drinking. The ban is in effect whenever high school bowling teams come to play or practice.

On this Tuesday afternoon, the Shawnee Mission North boys' and girls' teams are preparing for the start of the season, which lasts from January through March. Head coach Sarah Derks, a science teacher at North, segregates the sexes, though the players seem more interested in the snack bar than in flirting.

North's bowling program is three years old. Derks coaches the team with the assistance of Anna Dierking, an elementary-school teacher whose family owns Mission Bowl. Dierking bowled at Southwest Missouri State before transferring to Central Missouri and playing for Coach Holmes.

Bowling wasn't offered when Dierking and Derks were in high school. But today, 61 schools in Kansas have programs, up from 28 in 2005. When Turner High School in Kansas City, Kansas, announced the formation of a new team last fall, more than 100 students attended an informational meeting; 49 tried out.

Because boys and girls can compete simultaneously, the sport is relatively inexpensive, requiring less in coaching and travel expenses. It also creates opportunities for students who may lack the grace and athleticism necessary for other competitive sports. Derks says an eclectic group came out for the first North team. "I had some athletes who were into football and volleyball," she says. "And I had others where I was like, 'Where did you come from?'"

North's best player, Vanessa Sanders, is a two-sport athlete: She also runs hurdles on the track team. But she's had more success on the lanes. As a sophomore, she finished seventh at last year's state championship.

At the Mission Bowl practice, Sanders finishes a game with two strikes and a spare. Pin counts are easy to read in most bowlers' faces, yet Sanders tends to look embarrassed, whatever the outcome. As she bowls, teammates Kate Lusher and Sammy Jo Claussen play tic-tac-toe on the side of a foam cup.

In her second game, Sanders shoots a 163, a decent score for most girls on the varsity team but below her standards. "This is what I do: sucking," she says.

The conversation at the scorer's table turns to players' reactions when they roll a strike. Claussen, a junior with two-tone hair, mimics one opponent who made a forceful "X" with her arms after bowling a strike: "She went full-on, like, schwaaa!"

The girls describe another player who posed like a ballerina upon release, a memory that causes Claussen to lose her concentration and roll a gutter ball. "I was thinking of this the whole time," Claussen says, holding her arms aloft, ballet-style.

As a group, North's players probably lack the polish to bowl at a place like Central Missouri. Sanders says she has thought about bowling on a club team at the University of Kansas.

Though their bowling may not produce any scholarships, the North girls hold their own against the competition.

On January 10, at College Lanes in Overland Park, the girls (and the boys) beat Shawnee Mission South and Maranatha Academy.