SALAMANCA — With a change in leadership, the results haven’t slipped much, if it all, for the Salamanca High School bowling program yet this year.

Longtime assistant coach Kenneth “Skip” Nary took over the lead duties after his coaching partner, 20-year head coach Gene Jankowski, retired last school year. Salamanca was coming off a boys division title and girls third-place finish in CCAA Div. III and the Warriors sent a bowler to the state championship for the first time in program history.

A bowler himself, Nary said “it’s hard to replace a legend” in Jankowski, but enjoys working with the high schoolers to teach the sport.

“I love what I do,” Nary said. “I love encouraging the kids and if somebody has a new high game, it’s just very satisfying to me. I will help anybody who’s struggling, give them a few pointers to do that because bowling’s a social sport and you want to encourage it because it’s something you can continue to graduate … when you get as old as we are, you can keep doing it. So anything I can do to encourage the sport is what’s fulfilling to me and I love doing it. The kids are awesome. We’ve got a great group of kids and it shows.”

That state-qualifying bowler, Quinton Jones, is back for his senior season leading another strong season for the SHS boys, who sit first in CCAA Div. III (among nine teams) with a record of 29-3 in eight matches. Jones leads the Warriors’ boys with a 195.6 average game, followed by juniors Dylon Ingersoll (192.1) and Cole Urbanski (184.1), senior Corey Gebauer (182.4) and junior Dekkyn Krantz (175.6).

Salamanca’s one setback, a 3-1 loss to Gowanda, occurred with a shorthanded team. Nary said his team is talented, if healthy and available, enough to potentially be undefeated.

“We were short a man so we bowled five on six, and with league rules there’s no established averages, so you had to take 10 pins under the game of your lowest bowler and I had a brand new bowler, it was his first time bowling in a match, a little nervous,” he said. “So it just really killed us, we were lucky to get one (game). But the boys, there’s a lot of talent out there. I’ve got two seniors, four juniors, a 10th grader and an eighth grader. That’s been a blast.

“The team has a lot of talent. I’m telling you if they all hit like they can hit at one time, the sky’s the limit at sectionals. It’s a lot of talent, and there’s a lot of camaraderie, they get along well. It’s really a good team. They’ve bowled together for a long time.”

The one concern with a veteran-heavy team, Nary noted, is he’ll have to rebuild soon in a year or two. But currently the boys, led by seniors Jones and Gebauer, have the ability to compete at both a league and sectional level.

“It’s always the goal, but really I can honestly say without a shadow of a doubt, I think we can win the league,” Nary said. “I mean we have to earn it, nobody’s laying down. You’ve got injuries, you’ve got sickness. But they have the talent to do it, the talent is there. and the talent is there to do really well at sectionals.”

For the girls team, senior captain Faith Brown leads the team with a 141.6 average, including a team-best 206 high game. Junior Kathryn Lockhart is second at 138.3, followed by sophomore Jasmine Smith (135.6) and freshman Emelia Prey (133.6). The SHS girls have a 22-6 record in seven matches, currently third in the division behind Allegany-Limestone (23-1) and Hinsdale (17-3).

“My girls team is young, but they’re coming along and they’re learning the sport and they’re learning the sport well,” Nary said. “I’ve got a junior that’s going to be really good next year: (she’s) one that I wish I could have had a year or so ago because then she’d be in her groove. But we’ve got a couple freshmen and sophomores that are just doing really phenomenal. So I’m excited about the future for the girls team.”

Of the girls’ team’s leaders, Nary pointed to the captain Brown and Lockhart, but even the younger players bring an exciting energy to the team.

“(Lockhart’s) new to the sport but she’s always helping and pick up her fellow teammates,” he said. “Two freshmen Emelia Prey and Kyleigh Rohwer, they’re just bubbly so the girls team supports each other. They cheer each other on, they root each other on, everything. The girls team is probably more of a ‘team’ team than I’ve seen a lot of high school teams because they just really mesh well together.”

In his years as an assistant, Nary worked primarily with the girls team. Now his role is flipped as head coach, with new assistant coach Heather Doner working more with the girls.

“She works a lot with the girls, but she has been a godsend because she can do a lot of the stuff at school … she’s there at the school if something needs to be picked up or done,” Nary said. “It’s just an awesome (help). She does whatever is needed for the kids, she’s awesome. I’ve been kidding her that she’s the best assistant coach that the program’s ever had.”

Nary said he emphasizes his bowlers keeping up with their classwork, looking to continue a strong tradition of good grades in the program, particularly for the girls team that consistently earned Scholar-Athlete honors in recent years.

“Bowling’s a social sport, unfortunately we probably don’t have anybody that’s probably going to make a living at this but they can do really well in leagues and stuff like that,” he said. “They’re going to need their schooling, so I want to see them do well in school.”

Over the final few weeks before postseason competition, Nary is looking for, in a word, “consistency” for both teams.

“I would like to see more consistency from my girls and more consistency from the boys, they have a tendency to let down and coast a little bit,” he admitted. “I’d like to see them pushed so they have to struggle a little bit to win the match so it brings out that competitiveness. You get complacent and you don’t want to see it. The boys are lucky because the teams are fairly equal, the ones that are close to us. The girls, they’ve got teams out there that have some very strong girls on them, so they have to fight. We have to fight to win a point (against some teams).

“My goal is just to see them get more consistent, and enjoy themselves. I want to see them have fun and enjoy the sport because that’s what it needs to be.”