PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles High School senior Zoey Van Gordon made history Wednesday when she became the first Roughrider to sign a college letter of commitment for bowling.
Van Gordon has been the top bowler for the Riders since the program began four years ago. She signed to compete for the Flames of College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Neb.
Coach Becky Gundersen took over the program after it was created. She said then-athletic director Dwayne Johnson told her “coach, you got the job. And practice begins this afternoon.”
And Gundersen said waiting for her on the program’s first day of practice was Van Gordon.
“It was clear then that she had the determination and desire,” Gundersen said.
Van Gordon did something astonishing her junior year to demonstrate that determination. She bowled a decent 114 average her freshman year, then a 129 her sophomore year to qualify as an alternate for state.
In her junior year, she had a serious injury to the ligaments in her left wrist, her bowling hand.
“The doctor told her she could either not bowl or bowl right-handed,” Gundersen.
Van Gordon said she tried wearing a brace, got a steroids shot in the wrist, but nothing was working.
So, she taught herself to bowl right-handed. And in her junior year, she averaged a 156. She went on to finish 20th at state and to help Port Angeles finish sixth as a team.
“She’s the [switch-hitter] Cal Raleigh of Port Angeles,” Gundersen said. This year as a healthy senior, she has already had games of 199, 199 and 177 so far in two matches.
Gundersen said she received an email from College of Saint Mary looking for candidates for its bowling program. Gundersen said she immediately thought of Van Gordon.
Van Gordon went out to Omaha to check out the school and committed to make the big move to the Midwest. She’s also involved in 4-H, so she can remain involved in those activities. She plans to major in biology as a pre-veterinarian student. The College of Saint Mary is a private women’s Catholic school with an enrollment of 850. It competes at the NAIA level.
She said it was a little bit nerve-wracking to make the decision, but as the opportunity “started to get more real” she liked the city and the campus.
She said a lot of colleges in the South offer bowling as a sport to women.
Van Gordon, the daughter of Jaymie and Bill Van Gordon of Port Angeles, started out in soccer. She said she always wanted to be a college athlete and for a while thought it would be in soccer.
“I just didn’t think it would end up being bowling,” she said.
Van Gordon is the second Port Angeles history-making girl to sign a college commitment in the past year. This spring, Willow Harvey was the first Roughriders girl to sign to compete in women’s college wrestling.
