There are fast tracks to success.
 
Then there’s the express-lane version Joe Ouellette took to becoming the 2024 Class 6A boys state bowling champion.
 
Three weeks ago, Ouellette wasn’t even on the Olathe North varsity squad. On Thursday, he was the talk of Bowlero Northrock in Wichita, enjoying the day of his life in becoming perhaps the most improbable 6A state champion ever.
 
“Dude, it’s crazy,” Ouellette said of his path to the state title. “When I woke up this morning I thought, ‘Let’s at least get a 150-pin game. A 180. Maybe a 200. And then I beat my best series ever by 100 pins. I can’t explain it.”
 
Having a career-best series of 632 during the regular season, Ouellette blew that and his expectations out of the water by a mile with a 737 series at the state meet. That gave him a 12-pin margin for the title over Mill Valley’s Andrew Kouris who finished with a 725 series.
 
Derby’s Evan Clark, who held a 24-pin lead on Ouellette going into the final game, settled for third with a 720.
 

A track athlete at heart – he’s a 200 and 400-meter specialist for the Eagles – Ouellette decided to give bowling a try last year to “just bowl with my friends.” And even though he didn’t know the intricacies of the game, he showed some early promise.
 
“His first year, his first game bowling for us ever – he didn’t know anything about bowling, other than what the boys had showed him in open play – and he shoots a 234,” Olathe North coach Jim Anderson said. “My wife said, ‘Where did this kid come from?’ And then he struggled the rest of the year.”
 
Even though Ouellette showed signs of grasping the finer points of competitive bowling, he spent the bulk of the season on North’s JV. Which was good with him.
 
“I wasn’t too mad about it,” he said. “I was having fun.”
 
At the JV meets, Ouellete would show signs of big things, but couldn’t string a big series together. Case in point, his first meet of the season where he opened with a 252 game and then barely topped that total with his next two games of 148 and 123.
 
“I always had one good game but not much more,” Ouellette said. “I tell my coach all the time I’m the most inconsistent consistent bowler. But I usually have at least one good game in the 200s.”
 
Coming off back-to-back series of 623 or better, Ouellette was given a shot on varsity at the Eagles’ final regular-season meet of the season on their home lanes. Though he finished tied for the lowest series on the team with a 571, he had a 237 game that counted as one of the Eagles’ scoring games.
 
Knowing his potential for rolling such games and handling the pressure better than perhaps some other options for the final varsity spot, Anderson gave Ouellette the nod for the sixth spot for the Olathe city meet as well as regionals.
 
“When I got told I was coming up to varsity, I was like, ‘OK,’” he said. “To me it didn’t change. Bowling lanes are bowling lanes. Pins don’t move. It’s just bowling and I feel like I do good under pressure.”
 
He proved as much at the state meet. 
 

 
Ouellette began the day with three straight strikes on his way to an opening game of 234. At that point, the rest of the meet was simply going to be a bonus.
 
“I was just happy I got a strike to start it,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘This is going to be a good day. This was my good game. This was the game I needed to help my team.’ Then my second game was my highest game ever and my third game was just as good as my first game.”
 
Marking every frame in the second game, he rolled a career-best 268 that shot him from 14^th to second in the individual standings. Even though no one really knew exactly where he stood at the time, teammate Carter Stigall planted the seed that a state championship was within reach.
 
“He looks over at me and said, ‘I think you can win this,’” Ouellette said. “I said, ‘Dude, what?’ He said, ‘Last year a 740 won it. No pressure.’ I said, ‘Dude, that’s pressure.’”
 
Adding even more was an momentum-killing delay when the lanes Ouellete’s group was bowling on had a malfunction causing a 10-to-15-minute delay. Riding the high of his second game, Ouellette had reeled off five straight strikes to start the third game.
 
“It was nobody’s fault, but I was getting very irritated,” he said. “But if you get up there and have a consistent routine, as soon as you touch a ball, you should be locked in.”
 
It took him just a bit to get locked back in, going on a spare run following the mini-break. Needing to finish strong to climb past not only Clark, but the fast-closing Kouris, who had a 268 final game, Ouellette came through in the clutch. He struck out in the 10^th frame with three straight strikes to clinch the state title.
 
“I knew I was having a good game but I was going to throw a ball just to mess around,” he said. “But I did that in the past and got in trouble for it. So I didn’t and I’m very thankful for it. I tried to stay under control as much as I could.
 
“My heart was pounding. It’s never really pounded for bowling. I didn’t know what to do.”
 
It was a bit of a leap of faith for Anderson to give Ouellette his shot. And he was rewarded for it.
 
“He learned a lot and focused and it’s come,” Anderson said. “The kid’s got nerves of steel.”
 

 
While not as big of a surprise as Ouellette’s title, Kouris’ runner-up finish also a bit of a stunner to him given the way the season had been trending going into state. After rolling a 673 in the second meet of the year and 600-plus series in three of his first five meets, Kouris had been in a bit of a funk late in the season.
 
The Jaguar senior only had one 600-plus series over his final five meets and didn’t place in the top 20 at last week’s regionals with a 583 series.
 
“Honestly, I didn’t know how I was going to do coming into this,” Kouris said. “I was really nervous. I’d had a good season, but hadn’t performed like I wanted to lately.”
 
Kouris snapped out of his funk at state for his first 700 series of the season. He opened with a solid 222 game that was just outside the top 20 after the first game and then followed with a 235 that moved him up to 15^th.
 
But he was still 69 pins behind second-game leader Clark of Derby, making his chances of contending for a state title slim.
 
Then he opened up his final game with eight straight strikes and just like that was in the picture. Though the streak ended in the ninth frame, he still spared and finished with a 268 game that leap-frogged everyone but Ouellette.
 
“I just locked in I guess,” Kouris said. “I was just focusing on my release. I was getting kind of nervous once I hit those last frames. It feels really good that I could finish the season off with a good game and a good day.”
 
Clark positioned himself for the state title with a 280 second game to move from ninth to first in the standings. But he couldn’t recapture that momentum in the final game and his 194 dropped him to third. Lawrence’s Graesyn Hoss used a finishing 279 game to move up to fourth with a 710 series and Shawnee Mission East’s Christian Lahey finished sixth with a 706 series.
 
 
CLASS 6A BOYS INDIVIDUAL MEDALISTS
 

1. Joseph Ouellette, Olathe North, 737; 2. Andrew Kouris, Mill Valley, 725; 3. Evan Clark, Derby, 720; 4. Graesyn Hoss, Lawrence, 710; 5. Christian Lahey, Shawnee Mission East, 706; 6. Cody Spangler, Washburn Rural, 702; 7. Dawson Baumgartner, Derby, 690; 8. Kaden Stresser, Garden City, 687; 9. Anthony Dokolas, Olathe South, 684; 10. Brandon Andino Umana, Campus, 681; 11. Braden Morrow, Wichita South, 681; 12. Kane Burns, Garden City, 672; 13. Ethan Diehl, Mill Valley, 670; 14. Ian Caudillo, Olathe South, 661; 15. Davis Best, Blue Valley West, 657; 16. Tyler Huffman, Derby, 653; 17. Eli Nathan, Blue Valley North, 652; 18. Brett Stockwell, Mill Valley, 651; 19. Tanner Hagg, Olathe South, 650; 20. Athen Villarreal, Garden City, 650.