READY TO ROLL

SOUTH CENTRE TWP. — Stubbornness has sometimes come back to bite Trista Kocher, but when it came time to make plans for her future, it proved beneficial.
The Central Columbia senior recently signed her letter of intent to bowl at Division I Norfolk State, where the school will cover 90% of the cost with an athletic scholarship. That number could come down to 85%, with the school covering the remaining 15% with an academic scholarship for the 3.6 GPA Kocher is sporting so the rebuilding Spartans bowling team, which finished 4-54 and 81st out of 95 teams in the rankings, can put money toward other players.

It’s a situation that wouldn’t have unfolded had Kocher settled for any of a handful of Division II or Division III schools that reached out to her when she was in the early stages of her recruitment process. Instead, unsatisfied with what was unfolding, she and her mother, Tanya, wrote a letter to Division I schools while watching her father, Todd, bowl.

Kocher heard from two — Norfolk State and Delaware State — which is a good number considering only 39 compete at the DI level in bowling. But after touring both schools, she fell in love with Norfolk, saying “it picked me,” and the idea of being part of a rebuilding process under Aundray Darden excited her.

“When we first spoke, he wanted to know what type of bowler I was, how I learn, how I am when it comes to tournaments, self-diagnose, and what changes I make when the ball isn’t reacting how I want it to,” Kocher said. “I like to self-diagnose. I like a coach that I can tell, ‘I think this, and what do you think,’ and we attack it together. He liked that a lot about me.”

Home away from home

There won’t be a shortage of attacking by Kocher, either. The senior guesses she averages 25-30 hours a week at the lanes, bowling 50-60 games. First working at P-Nut Bowl and now Midway Lanes, Kocher says she spends all of her free time bowling, some nights not getting out until close to midnight. One perk of working at the lanes is the free games, but before she did that, starting in November 2023, she would take her time between frames so as not to spend $300 in one day.

She’d love to have that kind of time on her hands as a college student next year when she transitions from lanes that are traditionally a house shot — more forgiving and high-scoring lanes — to a sport shot — lanes that leave little room for error — but for someone who still squeezes in a second job at McDonald’s and dance classes, doubt isn’t in the sociology major’s vocabulary.

Shift in attitude

She’s been doubted, and it’s led to a period of self-reflection and adjustments. It showed up both inside and outside the alley. All it took was a former friend telling her to go Division III because Division I wasn’t a viable option for her to realize who she wanted near. Then it clicked in her bowling game, too, with both her and Central coach Kelly Weaver agreeing her attitude change was her biggest area of growth.

“She had a tendency to get mad, upset at herself when she’s not doing well. I, too, was one of them,” Weaver said. “She would come back and be her own worst enemy. If she threw a bad shot, she would upset at herself. That is the worst thing she could do. Once you get upset, and your concentration is broken by being upset, stubborn or angry, that is everything. This year, she was ‌a completely different person. She just went, ‘Oh well, next one,’ and that’s what we needed.”

The attitude change led Kocher to average ‌191.55 a game for the year and place 38th out of 112 bowlers at regionals on Feb. 27.

It has also allowed Kocher to be more of a leader for Weaver, who’s been on the job since 2018 and uses coaching to give back to the sport she loves after shoulder surgery and carpal tunnel sidelined her. The former Blue Jays bowler, who won a district title in 1991 with the team, bowled in leagues for years with her husband Tim and coached her son Kolton — who rolled a 300 — is both excited about how far Kocher has come and how far she will go.

“I’m so proud of her. Her continued hard work and dedication have really paid off for her,” Weaver said.

Kocher first showed up in the Press Enterprise’s high games on Dec. 16, 2013, in the P-Nut Bowl’s Bumper League with a 108. She had both the high game (209) and series (566) in Midway Lanes’ Sunday Adult/Junior in today’s edition, spanning her success in league play for 13 years. For someone whose family claims she’s had a bowling ball in her hands since she could walk, there’s no lane containing her passion.

“Watching my older sister [Tearstin] bowl when she was in high school, I always loved the team aspect of bowling,” Kocher said. “It’s something I always wanted to be a part of and I was good at and that helped. It just felt like my thing. It was really easy to just focus on that and nothing else. I could just go to the alley and focus on that and always have. I hope I always do.”

And with a bit of stubbornness in the right place, there’s no doubting how far of a roll she can get on.

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