Bloomsburg Senior Chloe Benner reaches the state championships
Chloe shows her form during a league match
Benner competed on the varsity bowling team at Columbia-Montour Area Vocational-Technical School (CMVTS) through a cooperative athletic agreement with the Bloomsburg Area School District. The opportunity began during her freshman year after Chloe and her mother approached Bloomsburg’s athletic department about her interest in bowling at the high school level.
Bloomsburg Athletic Director Mike Kogut supported the arrangement, noting that cooperative athletic programs are sometimes necessary for smaller districts. In fact, Bloomsburg currently participates in two such partnerships, including one for swimming.
But Chloe’s situation was especially unique. For all four of her eligible high school years, she was the only Bloomsburg student competing with the CMVTS bowling team.
Her dedication and steady improvement paid off this season when she qualified for the girls’ state bowling championships conducted by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. While the CMVTS team did not advance from the regional championships, Benner earned an individual berth by finishing 11th among the 112 regional qualifiers with a five-game total of 997.
That performance represented one of the strongest tournament series of her career. During the regional competition, she posted a personal-best series and rolled a high game of 224. When one game did not go as planned, she adjusted.
“My fourth game was my worst score, so I changed my ball,” she explained. “That helped, and I bowled a 199 in the next game.”
Benner credits much of her progress to the mental side of bowling. “My mental game—staying focused on the alley, the oil and my physical ability to throw a 15-pound ball down the alley,” she said. “The mental game is where you have to be strong, because if you start to get down on yourself, it can affect everything.”
She added that consistency has often been her strength. “All year, I was strongest on my first game and my last,” she said. “But I keep my focus in the middle three games, which has proven very successful in league and tournament competition. I was super proud of my first three games.”
Her ability to pick up spares has also been a key factor in her success. That focus carried into the state tournament, where Benner competed in six games against the best high school bowlers in the commonwealth. She posted scores of 182, 188, 178, 154, 146 and 134 for a six-game total of 982, finishing 22nd among the 24 bowlers who advanced to the championship round.
Her mother observed that Chloe started the tournament strong in the opening three games before struggling to consistently hit her marks and convert several spares in the later games. Even so, both were pleased with the experience. “Overall, we are very happy with the day,” her mother said.
Chloe agreed, maintaining a positive outlook throughout the competition. “I really had fun today and am glad I got to have this experience,” she said afterward.
Her journey into bowling began years earlier through a family connection. Chloe remembers tagging along when her mother bowled in a ladies’ league and rolling a very light ball down the lane for fun. Those early experiences sparked an interest that eventually led her to join a junior bowling league when she was 10 years old.
Her mother recalls hoping the sport might eventually lead to a high school opportunity. “We were hoping for a Bloomsburg team when she was in middle school,” she said, noting Chloe’s experience bowling on a co-ed junior league team.
When Chloe first joined the CMVTS program as a freshman, however, the transition was not easy. The team already had a strong and competitive lineup, and she spent much of her first season competing at the junior varsity level.
Kogut remembers those early challenges as part of an important learning process. “Her first year was part of a journey that had some good and disappointing days,” he said. “She had some challenges, but she made her way through those. She had to get used to a whole new sports team, and I think it was tough for her to get into the lineup, which is the frustration of any athlete.”
Benner remembers feeling nervous when she first joined the team. “It was nerve-wracking,” she said. Over time, however, her persistence began to pay off. “Chloe went to practice every day and worked hard,” Kogut said. “It has been a great maturation on Chloe’s part to see the progress she has made from that first year to where she is now. It’s been quite the improvement.”
Kogut also credits the support system behind her success. “Chloe and her mom make a great team,” he said. “They work together on her bowling career.”
Her mother agrees that watching Chloe grow in the sport has been rewarding. “When I realized she had bowling talent, it was a great feeling that she was interested in something I had knowledge about,” she said. “I did not want to push her into anything, but for a mom, it was a very good feeling.”
For Chloe, bowling has required commitment and sacrifice. “Sometimes it has been difficult,” she said, “but there are always things to do to improve.”
Looking ahead, she hopes bowling will remain part of her life after graduation. She plans to join a women’s bowling league or possibly attend a college that offers a club bowling program.
For now, however, reaching the state championships stands as the culmination of four years of perseverance, an experience that reflects both her personal determination and the unique path she followed to compete as a Bloomsburg student on another school’s team.